Despite being out of coaching for nearly six years, legendary Florida State head coach Bobby Bowden made some headlines Tuesday after telling ESPN’s Paul Finebaum that the majority of Seminole fans felt former FSU quarterback Jameis Winston embarrassed the university with his actions off the field.
While he has certainly has had his transgressions, Florida State fans in general have stood behind their 2013 Heisman Trophy winning quarterback. The vast majority feel that Winston has been slighted in the court of popular opinion for a number seemingly minor mishaps and essentially convicted for an alleged sexual assault late in 2012 without much evidence against him.
With Bowden’s comments on Tuesday, the feeling is that the former head coach has bought into the anti-Winston rhetoric. On Twitter and to radio talk show hosts, some in the fan base have even spoke out against the former Florida State head man.
For younger Seminole fans, who may not have had the opportunity to watch Bowden’s great teams of the late 1980s and 1990s, the affinity for the man for whom the field at Doak Campbell Stadium is named simply isn’t there. Bowden’s final nine seasons paled in comparison to the previous 14 as the Seminoles lost at least five games five times and only twice lost fewer than four.
For that group, they didn’t witness much success from Florida State on the national level until Jameis Winston arrived.
Given the legendary status of Bowden and the polarizing figure that Winston, it’s not hard to understand why the comments made national headlines, but the perceived criticism really wasn’t much of a criticism at all.
Since retiring following the Gator Bowl on New Year’s Day of 2010, Bowden hasn’t been very close to the program. He said that was a move made intentionally to avoid overshadowing his successor Jimbo Fisher. Bowden didn’t return to Doak Campbell Stadium for a football game until October of 2013 — nearly four years after he retired.
With Bowden not being close to the program, his perception of Winston might not be that different from a casual fan, who doesn’t live, eat and breathe Florida State football.
Aside from that, Bowden is 85 years old and has always been an outspoken man of Christian faith. It’s not a surprise that Winston’s pettier actions like taking crab legs and citing vulgar internet memes haven’t exactly struck a chord with Bowden.
What’s not being widely examined however, is the other things that Bowden had to say about Winston to Finebaum and the Tallahassee Democrat.
When asked to clarify the statement, Bowden said it was no different than when he was coaching and he had a number of players, who at times embarrassed the university. On Finebaum, Bowden also said that Winston was young enough to mature and ultimately that he felt Winston’s days of misdeeds were over.
Bowden further noted that he felt Fisher dealt with the Winston the way most coaches would have and that righting a kid’s wrongs were part of a coach’s duties. Bowden went on to call Winston one of the greatest players to ever play at Florida State and from a guy who coached Derrick Brooks, Deion Sanders, Marvin Jones, Warrick Dunn, Walter Jones, Peter Warrick and two Heisman Trophy winning quarterbacks, that’s high praise.
So who should Florida State fans side with? The guy who took over a team that won four combined games the previous three seasons and turned it into one of the most prestigious programs in the country during his 34 years as head coach or the guy who in 2013 quarterbacked FSU to its first national title since Bowden’s 1999 team went wire-to-wire as No. 1? Fortunately for ‘Nole fans, that’s a choice that’ll never need to be made.
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