Bowden’s 377 victories at Howard College (now Samford University), West Virginia and Florida State are more than every major college football coach except Joe Paterno, who won 409 games in 46 seasons at Penn State. Bowden guided his FSU teams to a 315-98-4 record (the Seminoles were forced to vacate 12 wins because of NCAA violations), 12 ACC championships and two national titles, in 1993 and 1999. When Bowden retired after the 2009 season, he ranked first among active coaches in winning percentage in bowl games (68.8%), second in bowl victories (22) and second in bowl appearances (33).
Bowden led his teams to bowl games for 27 consecutive seasons, including a remarkable 15 straight appearances in prestigious New Year’s Day bowl contests. At one point, Bowden’s teams won 11 consecutive bowl games over that stretch. He is also the only coach in NCAA history to lead teams to 14 straight seasons with 10 victories or more.
The man had a hella career, even if you weren’t an FSU fan (which I’ve never been). Still, I’ll always give him credit for being the best foil of Spurrier’s career.
Get The Picture 
He was fearless about scheduling to build his program, on road games.
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Yep, something that was lost by later teams like UCF.
I always liked the guy and enjoyed him beating Florida.
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Coach Bowden built the FSU program from the ground up without a ton of financial support and with a lot of blood, sweat, tears and road trips. People say Saban is the GOAT, but he started at Alabama between 2nd and 3rd base with the money Bammers put up to make him successful. Bowden built the Seminole program from the batter’s box. Could Nick Saban have taken a college football backwater like FSU was and turned it into the perennial powerhouse it became?
RIP, Coach Bowden.
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Great question, my friend. Thinking about it, there is no way to compare Toledo’s potential with a large State university’ potential being in a state that is one of the biggest source of HS talent, and it was his first HC job.
Toledo therefore, in my opinion, provides no insight. How about Michigan State? Like FSU, a large state university in a large state? Unlike FSU, MSU was in better state than FSU as it had the financial support of a conference and a scheduling benefit of a conference, and Saban took over MSU when its recent records were better than FSU’s recent records.
Is it fair to compare how Saban did at MSU in a better circumstance with how FSU did in worse?
If so, the answer to your question could be “No.” If it is not a fair comparison then my answer would be, “Maybe not.”
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Gaskill, great comparison of Saban at MSU. Saban got the hell out of East Lansing as quickly as he could. I think the answer is no.
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And FSU won the 1998 game
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Growing up here in North Florida I went to a lot of FSU games. Was always good to see him and Andrews prowling the sidelines. They always had their sidekick Burt Reynolds following them close behind. Rip, Coach…
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Dadgum.
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In the mid 90’s, I worked for Nestle and Bobby was a key note speaker at a national sales meeting. I remember that he had this uncanny ability to be funny, entertaining, and motivating all at the same time. During his monologue, he pretended to make a gaffe about how he broke a recruiting rule or something and then nervously told the crowd not to let that get out.
Faith, Family, Football. RIP, Coach Bowden.
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The man was a great coach…one example, out of countless examples, was helping the Marshall staff after their tragic airplane crash when he was coaching at West Virginia…but by all accounts he was just an awesome human being who lived his faith and was unapologetic about it. CMR attributed so many of his own great personal attributes to Coach Bowden…condolences to his family and friends…the world lost a legend, not just a legendary coach.
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RIP to a true gentleman and one of the all time greats.
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I believe that Heaven just got a great coach for any team they have…faith: he had it fully and it showed; family: his love for his wife and sons was full and complete; football: he was just the greatest..the kind of man you’d feel completely confident in sending your son for him to coach. Dadgummit, I’m gonna miss that man!
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Dang! That quote that McMurphy shared… you know Spurrier was pissed that Bowden had a swipe at Florida as good or better than Spurrier could’ve come up with. Talk about beating someone at their own game.
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RIP Coach Bowden. Prayers for his family
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