Two predictions for a new football era

By Charlie Barnes, Executive Director - Seminole Boosters

I was nursing a beverage and waiting for others to arrive at a restaurant in Miami on one of the last evenings of 1979. Florida State’s Seminoles would play in a major New Year’s Day bowl for the first time ever and there was much contemplation among the faithful of how far our young program had traveled in just four years under new Head Coach Bobby Bowden.

A quarter century or so later, Bowden’s Seminoles have notched seven Orange Bowls, including one for a National Championship, and Bowden was inducted into the Orange Bowl Hall of Fame on New Year’s Day 2004.

That long-ago evening in 1979, I jotted down some predictions on the back of an envelope. Twenty years later, it resurfaced, and I made humble note of the fact that I had been wrong about virtually everything.

The landscape of college athletics has changed much since our first Orange Bowl. Florida is now the nation’s richest source of prospective college athletes. Our high school football is the best in the country.

In 1979, there was not as yet a single college or university in Florida that could legitimately be called a sports power of any description. Today, not just FSU, Florida and Miami fit that profile, but also South Florida (a new member of the Big East!), Central Florida and new football programs at Florida Atlantic and Florida International.

So, here are two predictions for a new era. There’s no reason to believe that these will be any more on target than were my last faded batch of guesses. But the good news is that last time, in spite of the fact that I never saw it coming, things turned out very well indeed for the Seminoles.

• A prediction about Bowden

I predict that Bobby Bowden will retire when he can no longer win 10 games a year and beat Florida more often than not. Florida and Miami are the benchmarks, and Miami has never, for us at least, been the game you want to hang your career hat on. On the other hand, Bowden’s record is quite handsome against the Gators. We do appear, however painfully and slowly, to be recovering from the circumstances of 2000-2001.

Bowden is going to be the beneficiary of a blue-ribbon recruiting class this year, and newcomers from the last year or so are impressive. Yes, the record vs. Miami is a controversy and yes, the ACC is getting markedly better, but 10 wins a season is still there woven into the fabric of the talent.

When he speaks to recruits and the question comes up about his age and retirement, Coach says a clever thing: “I will retire when I feel that I cannot coach effectively for another five years.”

Take him at his word. Coaching and winning are his compelling interests. He cannot abide inactivity; he is driven by the urge to compete.

As long as he can do it, he will. Call it like the politicians chant: four more years.

• A prediction about Spurrier

The smart folks who follow these things say that Steve Spurrier will sit out a year and then entertain offers from the highest bidder to take over another college program. However, I believe that he will take at least one more job in the pro ranks first.

Churchill spoke of “the curse of the English cavalry” being that they never knew when to stop charging. There is no better example of that impulse than Steve Spurrier. He’s the sort who keeps throwing the ball to prove a point.

The reason he’ll stay with the pros at least for awhile is because his personality won’t allow him to leave a field that he has not conquered. It’s one thing to lose a game or to have a poor season. It’s quite another for a fellow like Steve to have the substance and quality of his genius trashed in a very public forum.

The media was not kind. An article by Steve Rushin in a recent issue of Sports Illustrated sneers at Spurrier’s “Nixonian” exit from Washington. “Resign” he says, is the “perfect Nixonian verb — redolent of disgrace” — and suggests that Spurrier, who helicoptered into a Redskins pep rally before his first season, likewise choppered out of Washington,” “flashing twin victory signs, one for each of his losing seasons.”

Such public disdain for his ability does not sit well with Spurrier. He has always felt that the scoreboard was the final judge of character and he’s not willing to leave the judgment where it now stands.

My prediction is that like the English cavalry he will keep charging; he will not leave the professional field before he proves himself at that level.