Before we turn the page to show all these faces of Bobby Bowden I do think it is only fair to go over some of the good of Bowden. In fact, I am sure he still does some good, but for the most part football is about what have you done for me lately and lately does not put a good face on Florida State football or Bobby Bowden.

When Coach Graves left Florida after the wonderful 1969 season things looked good for the Gators. The Gators were after all hiring a former player who went to Tennessee and made a good name for himself coaching. Little did we know that FSU would only be a year behind the Gators in having to find a new coach and like Graves, Bill Peterson was very popular with the Seminole fans.

Neither Florida or FSU did very well in finding replacements for their two coaches. Coach Dickey never duplicated at Florida the success he had in Knoxville and in spite of some great talent at Florida the 70's were a decade of mediocrity.

FSU's replacement coach was a fellow named Larry Jones who promptly guided the Noles to a couple of pretty fair seasons, but in 1973 the legs of Renegade were broken at the knees and the Noles had their first winless season (for a complete year, in 1947 they were 0-5).

FSU followed the era of Larry by hiring Darrell Mudra who was a head coach that liked to observe games from the press box. To say he coached the Seminoles from the press box would be a slap in the face of coaching. Dr. Mudra guided FSU to seasons of 1-10 and 3-8, which gave the Seminoles a three year record of 4-29 (I added that in case any Seminole or Georgia fans were reading).

FSU then made the greatest hire in their sports history when they hired Bobby Bowden. In just two seasons the Seminoles were 10-2 (of course Seminole fans today would say he just won with Mudra's players, if they are consistent) and they were getting a lot of good press with their new folksy talking coach.

I don't know how much Bowden's success had to do with it, but the Gators finally grew tired of the mediocre seasons and fired Dickey. They hired Charlie Pell who was turning Clemson into a football power and wanted the same atmosphere in Gainesville.

Bowden really seemed to do all the right things at FSU in his first dozen season or so. He made them road warriors, which got them a lot of hype, they played a wide open brand of football which appealed to the athleletes and he recruited well, plus he ended up like a pig that fell into a bucket of slop when the Gators went on probation.

Gator fans will tell you quickly that if the Gators had not gone on probation that Bowden would have been fired coming off of six stright losses to the Gators (ironic isn't that next year will be six straight losses again). Meanwhile, to be fair, the Seminole fans will tell you that the Gators would not have won six straight without cheating. The discussion has gone on for 20 years and will probably go on for another 20.

Be that as it may, Bowden and his Seminoles did take advantage of the situation and created a recruiting legacy that lasted for over fifteen seasons. The Noles fired off one and two loss seasons like they had a patent on them.

Only one thing was going wrong in all of this, Bowden could not win the MNC (Mythical National Championship). The Noles found more ways to not win a title than they did to win one. The press would be fixated on the story line of when would Bobby win one. Of course the problem with the press being fixed on this problem, they are the very ones who could fix it and what better story for them to have than Bobby finally winning a title.

Next: part three where Bobby sales his soul for the MNC.