If you read nothing else in this article read the last two paragraphs that are in bold. This game in 1980 was the last Nebraska game I attended with my father as the next fall he died of cancer. Even though we were disappointed in the loss we stood up and clapped for Bowden’s Florida State team as they gave it their all. He has said this is the game that defined the future of their program. He was overwhelmed at the class and knowledge of the Nebraska fans unlike many of the other Big Eight teams back then and now the Big Twelve.
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Subject: Bobby Bowden on Nebraska
One of college football’s greatest legends said Thursday that Bo Pelini
wasn’t the only one who concluded that “Nebraska’s back” after the Huskers
flattened Arizona in the Holiday Bowl.
“I said the exact same thing,” Florida State’s legendary Bobby Bowden said
before flying to Lincoln Friday to give the keynote address for more than
800 football coaches at Nebraska’s annual Spring Coaches’ Clinic.
A longtime friend of NU Athletic Director Tom Osborne, Bowden marvels at
how fast Bo Pelini and his staff have turned Husker football around.
“That shows the wisdom of Tom Osborne because he hired him, didn’t he?”
Bowden said by telephone. “I give Tom a lot of credit for recognizing what
kind of head coach Bo would be.”
Bowden already had heard great things about Pelini from Jimbo Fisher, who
was the offensive coordinator at the same time Pelini was the defensive
coordinator at LSU.
Now both are head coaches at tradition-rich schools. Fisher is in his
first season as head coach at Florida State, and Bowden’s hoping he can get
the Seminoles headed to the same place Pelini has Nebraska.
“Really, nobody had to tell me anything about Bo,” Bowden said. “I knew
what kind of job he was doing because I saw Nebraska play. Watching that
defense against Texas and Arizona, I said Nebraska’s back.”
Back to where the Huskers belong. “I see Nebraska fixing to get right back
into the fight,” Bowden said, alluding to a bid for a national championship.
“Boy, I’ll tell you. That team in the Holiday Bowl reminded me of the
Nebraska teams we used to see and play against.”
Bowden Went 6-2 Head-to-Head Against Osborne
In head-to-head matchups against Osborne-coached teams, Bowden went 6-2
and 4-0 in two Orange Bowls and two Fiesta Bowls.
After a third-ranked Florida State beat 11th-ranked Nebraska, 27-14, in
the 1993 Orange Bowl, Osborne and his defensive staff spent 2 ½ days with
Bowden and his staff in the off-season.
Osborne has always been appreciative of that time because it convinced him
to recruit and use more speed at linebacker and in the secondary. “When we
played Nebraska in the early years, they were big, husky people and couldn’t
run as good as we could,” Bowden said. “Tom’s teams were wearing people out
with those big boys, but when he transitioned to more speed on defense, boy,
did he ever wear people out.”
The Seminoles and Huskers were matched again a year later in an Orange
Bowl national championship game, and Florida State escaped with an 18-16
win. “You know the rest of the story,” Bowden said. “After that, Nebraska
put those three national championship teams together in four years and came
within a whisker of winning all four.”
Shortly after that 18-16 heartbreaker, Bowden asked Nebraska’s Ron Brown
if he would like to coach Florida State’s wide receivers. “I love Bobby.
He’s fun. He’s a Christian, and even though he’s a different personality
than Tom, they have the same basic values, so I really thought about taking
that job,” Brown said Friday. “But, in the end, I wanted to stay with Tom
and see what we might be able to get done here. Fortunately, some great
things happened.”
Under Brown’s leadership with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Bowden
has spoken several times in Nebraska – from Omaha to Norfolk to Scottsbluff.
“I’ve never turned down a speaking request from Nebraska,” he said. “I ask
them to fly me there because I don’t have enough time to drive.”
Bowden is loaded with driving jokes. He said his wife, Ann, drove the kids
all around when they were little and now that he’s out of coaching for the
first time in 57 years, “she does all the driving for me, too,” he said. All
I do is sit there and hold the wheel.
Bobby is the master of the quip. When his wife complained that he loved
football more than he loved her, Bobby told her: “But I love you more than I
love basketball.” Yes, the punch line was borrowed from Duffy Daugherty and
used frequently by Bob Devaney.
A Believer in Both Nebraska Hall-of-Fame Coaches
“I loved Bob Devaney, and I love Tom Osborne,” Bowden said. “I’m from
Alabama, but I’m a Nebraska type of guy. I love what I call the conservative
states like Alabama, Nebraska and Iowa. I can identify with their people,
with their university, with their town and with their state. I really
believe that the pure-blooded Americans that go all the way back to 1776 are
the type of people who were raised on the farms and in the country sides
that have towns like Nebraska has.”
To this day, Bowden can’t figure how Nebraska has stayed so consistently
great in football. “You know,” he said, “there are enough players in Florida
to take care of Florida, Florida State, Miami, South Florida, Central
Florida, Florida Atlantic and Florida International and yet Tom could come
in here and get somebody like Tommy Frazier – just like he went to Texas and
got somebody like Turner Gill.”
Once those great athletes blend with Nebraska natives and walk-ons, Bowden
says “those homegrown boys become the solid citizens and the backbone of the
team, and you have something really special.”
“With Devaney and then Osborne and then (Frank) Solich, Nebraska had a
great formula, an amazing formula, really,” Bowden said. “You know, you can
get too many stars. All you really need is maybe three or four 4-star
recruits and fill the rest in with rock-solid people who all want it so bad
they can taste it. They all love to run out there in front of the greatest
fans in the world – boy, do they love that. Ain’t nothin’ like that state
pride Nebraska has. Is it ever special. They’ve had it since Devaney, and,
you know what? I don’t think they’ll ever lose it again.”
There was a time, though, when Bowden wondered if Nebraska was almost
Paradise Lost. “When I saw Nebraska three, four, five years ago, I just
couldn’t believe it,” Bowden said. “I’ve been around a long time, and I’d
just never seen Nebraska not play physical, hard-nosed,
ram-the-ball-down-your-throat football. I saw them play a finesse type of
football, and it just didn’t work.
“My first thought was this defense does not fit Nebraska,” he said. “My
second thought was this style of offense does not fit Nebraska. It was just
not how they were born or what they believed in. It was very obvious to see
something was wrong, but I still thought it could be fixed because it’s
Nebraska. And now, look at where they are …. right back in the fight …
everybody better get ready. Nebraska’s back to the old Tom Osborne, Bob
Devaney type of football – the kind of football Nebraskans know best and
love most.”
The defense has been fixed, the offense is seeking a new identity and the
leadership has been stabilized.
“We lost a bit of our sting down here, too, you know,” Bowden said. “But
we kept our string of 27 straight bowl games alive, so we didn’t lose what
Nebraska lost, I don’t believe. I’m glad Tom came back, and Nebraska fans
kept coming. A full stadium since 1962! Lordy, isn’t that unbelievable? Look
at Florida. If they don’t have a good year, they don’t all show up. They do
better than we do, though. Then there’s Miami. Those fans don’t ever show up
unless they’re playing Notre Dame.”
Bowden, Osborne Share the Same Basic Values
Now that Bobby Bowden isn’t a head coach anymore, he can speak candidly,
openly, freely. One of the game’s greatest legends isn’t afraid at all to
heap praise on a program he’s always loved and respected, and he’s excited
that a friend of his has been able to restore the order as athletic
director.
“You know, if you wrote down on paper what Tom and I both believe in, you
might be looking at an identical piece of paper,” Bowden said. “I don’t want
to put words in Tom’s mouth, but I think his approach to priorities is the
same as mine – God first and family second.”
Those values dictate a certain set of priorities, and Bowden, now 80,
enjoys telling young coaches what he’s learned over the past 57 years. He
has any number of slogans to share, but the three most important are: 1)
Don’t make football your god; 2) If you want a better job, prove it; and 3)
If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
“Some coaches put so much stress on football, they forget their families,
and they burn out,” Bowden said. “I also think coaches should quit going out
and looking for jobs all the time. Work your tail off and show people why
you deserve something better. If you can’t stand criticism, you better get
out coaching.”
Bowden admits that he and Osborne have different personalities. “I’m a
little more outgoing,” Bowden said. “I kind of live off the kidding and
joking around, you know. But let me tell you this. When Tom came and spoke
at my roast last summer in Tallahassee, he got more laughs than anyone.”
Bob Stoops and Mack Brown were funny. Bowden was funny. So was Burt
Reynolds and just about everyone else. “But when Tom Osborne says something
funny, I mean, it’s funny, and everybody laughs,” Bowden said.
Bowden remembers Osborne telling a story about how much Bobby loves
charity work. He talked about the time Bobby visited a nursing home, helping
the old folks and wanted to meet a patient but couldn’t find his room.
According to Osborne, Bowden went to the desk to ask a staff member where
his room was. “Oh you poor dear,” the worker said. “You just go to the front
desk and they’ll tell you who you are.”
With the Pressure Gone, Bowden Will Become a Fan
The good news is this. Bobby Bowden knows who he is. Even though he wanted
to remain in coaching one more season and was denied that opportunity, he’s
making a living speaking about three times a week. A month ago, he was the
featured speaker in Hawaii and then went to Rio de Janeiro “for Mutual of
Omaha, no less,” he said, plugging Nebraska yet again.
Last Saturday night, he was in Atlanta. Monday and Tuesday nights of this
week, he was in Georgia. He was flown Friday afternoon to Lincoln and was
set to fly home shortly after speaking.
“Obviously, having Coach Bowden come up is an added bonus,” Pelini said.
“He’s a legend, and one of the greatest to ever walk the sideline. I’m
excited to have a chance to spend some time with him. I think it will be
great for all the coaches who come in to hear a guy like that … we can all
learn from someone like that.”
Retirement will be busy, but fun. “I don’t think I’ll miss football one
bit. I really don’t,” Bowden said. “I’ll miss the associations with the
players and the coaches and miss the boosters I’ve been hanging around with
for past 35 years. But miss coaching? No, not really.
“I’ll be honest. The minute I resigned, the first thing I noticed was the
tremendous release off my shoulders,” Bowden said. “You don’t realize it
until you don’t have it anymore. I don’t have to recruit. I don’t have to
worry about a 2 a.m. phone call if a player gets in trouble. I don’t have to
worry about grades or eligibility. Tremendous burdens have all been released
at once.”
So what will Bobby Bowden do besides speak? “Become a fan … watch teams
like Nebraska play every chance I get,” he said. “I haven’t been able to do
that for 57 years because I’ve been coaching. I’ll be turning that TV on at
noon and watching it until I turn it off at midnight. I can’t wait.”
Neither can we, Bobby. You now officially qualify as one of our most
famous fans, with at least one big exception, of course.
Editor’s note: On Oct. 8, 1980, Head Coach Bobby Bowden wrote the
following letter on Florida State stationary and sent it to Nebraska after
his Seminoles beat the Huskers, 18-14 in Lincoln:
“I have been coaching college football the past 28 years and have played
before some great crowds in this country. I have never seen people with more
class than I saw at Nebraska last week. The Nebraska fans, players,
cheerleaders, band, officials, coaches, etc., gave me a living testimony of
what college football should be all about. I actually had the feeling that
when we upset the Nebraska team that instead of hate and spite, the Nebraska
fans thanked us for coming to Lincoln and putting on a good show. This is
nearly unheard of in today’s society. Nebraska, you are a great example for
Americans to copy. I hope we show half the class your people do.”
