Q & A: Bobby Bowden

As part of Sunday's Media Day, Florida State head coach Bobby Bowden sat down with the print media for approximately 30 minutes. In part I of the interview, the 76-year-old coaching legend talks about playing Miami in the season opener, having a fifth-year senior at running back, Drew Weatherford's progress, using the tight end in the offense and more.

Q: How do you feel about getting Miami away from Labor Day after this season?

Bobby Bowden: After this year, I can't think of anybody tougher to open with than Miami. We have opened with them the last four years, the publicity part of it, you can't buy it. You can't pay enough money to get that type of national attention. I think it really helps our recruiting and it helps theirs. I don't think anybody enjoys opening with Miami. Miami is one of those teams that there is not a good time to play them.

Q: Is it better to play them later on when both offenses are clicking a bit more and have some more experience?

Bobby Bowden: Well, yeah you would probably rather have two or three games under your belt and they may have two but it is all relative. They open and we open at the same time and I think, I haven't talked to Larry (Coker) about it but I imagine that if both of us had a choice with everything being equal that we would both want to get some games underneath our belt before we play each other.

Q: How tough will it be to turn this team around mentally following the Miami game when you return to the field five days later?

Bobby Bowden: A lot of it is going to depend on whether you win or lose. If you win you are pretty high spirited. If you lose then you might be challenged to go out and work harder the next week so it is difficult playing on Saturday after playing on a Monday. That is why we didn't choose Southern Cal or Notre Dame for that game.

Q: When you got Lorenzo Booker he was the guy that year, how much do you hope to have a special season for him?

Bobby Bowden: Booker, of course this is Booker's last year, and Booker is street smarter than a lot of kids and the reason that I say that is that when he came to Florida State, his first year he hadn't been here three weeks when he came and asked me if I could red-shirt. Usually a guy with his reputation, they don't want to hear red-shirt – 'I am to good, I am going to play now'. He came in and he said coach, I need to red-shirt. We did red-shirt him his freshman year and now he is down to his senior year and has had a good spring and good preparation and he should be able to have a good year and I think a lot of it depends – I don't think it, I know it – will depend upon our offensive line staying healthy. I don't care how good Booker is he cannot run without some good blocking.

Q: How close were you to burning that red-shirt during his freshman year?

Bobby Bowden: That could have happened but we did not play him. That could have happened and we thought about it but didn't do it, thanks goodness.

Q: A few weeks ago you said that if Florida State could stay healthy that they could be as good as any team in the country, how come?

Bobby Bowden: Well, I think because our maturity is as good as anybody in the country. There are different levels of maturity, Penn State last year had 17 starting fifth year seniors, that is different from another team that has the same talent but they are all sophomores or freshmen. The maturity can change but I think personnel wise we are about as good as anybody else. I have always looked at it like this that out of a 120 teams you have between 20 and 50 and one of them will win a National Championship. You could list or I could list 20 teams and we would hit it. We would probably hit the two. What I am saying is a couple of those teams are going to get lucky, couple of them will stay healthy, a couple of them will get a couple of bounces and they will get there. That is what it is going to take. I don't think many people line up each year and go right through it without a break or two. When we won the National Championships we got several breaks.

Q: It is a more wide-open race this year as there doesn't seem to be a distinct favorite, don't you agree?

Bobby Bowden: That is right, right now they are picking who, Ohio State right now. Notre Dame, Notre Dame impresses me because of their quarterback.

Q: Do you get the sense that there is some momentum already building on this team and that you may be flying a bit below the national radar?

Bobby Bowden: There is always that possibility. I think that is the fun thing about the first part of the year because everybody is undefeated, nobody has lost a game, and everybody is so happy. Everybody's goal is the same, to win them all. So what is in store for us I don't know but you hope to get a couple of surprises you didn't expect. You hope to get very few disappointments. You hope you stay healthy. You hope you get a good bounce early. There are so many things that you have got to have to reach your goal. There is another thing you can't do and that is throw your eggs in one basket and your season is over if you lose the first game. I have seen that happen before.

Q: Is the fact that you have largely avoided off the field headaches this off-season is good starting point for the season you are looking to have?

Bobby Bowden: I can't say it is good because if I do then tomorrow there will be a bank robbery. We are lucky that we haven't had anybody step out of line publicly because that is just the way it is nowadays. Nobody is immune. Just as soon as I would start saying, 'Wow, look how good we are this year.' then tomorrow somebody would step out of line. It can just happen to anybody, to any team, and we just have been as lucky as heck for the last spring and summer.

Q: Are you confident with the suspensions and coaching turnovers at Miami that your players are going to remember that it is still Miami they are playing?

Bobby Bowden: No problem. If we don't then we are making the biggest mistake we have ever made. Miami has got football players. They have lost kids but they have subs. We will probably lose a couple before we play them because of injury. That is usually what it occurs. You better not ever get overconfident with them. They have beaten us so many times I don't see how we can.

Q: Can you talk a little bit about how you view the situation of Maurice Clarett, do you view his situation as a waste, shame, or sad. What goes through your mind when you see the news concerning him?

Bobby Bowden: That is nearly unheard of. Here is a guy that starts as a freshman and takes his team to the National Championship, wins the National Championship, and then all of a sudden they lose him. I have never seen that one before. For some reason down inside, a lot of it I would hate to say it but it is true goes back to up-bringing, they learn things in those first 17 years of their life that are going to stick with them all of their life. People expect the coach to change it in two years, it is very difficult. I hate it for him.

Q: This preseason we have heard you use a term that we haven't heard very much recently in Tight End.

Bobby Bowden: What is that? (laughs)

Q: Those guys are young but do you think they can be a real weapon for you this year?

Bobby Bowden: Well, our tight ends are talented, these young boys that we have brought in. Everyone of them is a freshman, every tight end that we have is a freshman. We have one that is a red-shirt freshman, he has been catching the ball a lot better in practice too which is good, by the way. They are more talented than any tight ends – we may have had a more talented tight end but we didn't have more of them like we have got this year. They are very talented. (Caz) Piurowski is 6-foot-7 and he ain't stretch to 6-foot-7, if you stretch him he would be about 6-foot-8 because he is about 6-foot-7 and a 1/4 . Then we have got the young man out of Tennessee who is about 220 pounds, he is fast, has good speed, and is not as big and husky like Caz is but he does have a lot of talent. Then you have (Charlie) Graham who is catching the ball better. These tight ends, it does look like you can re-insert your passing game to the tight ends but then again you have to realize they are totally inexperienced.

Q: If Piurowski is as tough as his dad then there should be no concern about him, correct?

Bobby Bowden: Oh boy, there is no doubt about that. Paul Piurowski is one of the toughest kids – I have always felt like he made the best play of any player we have had in the 31 years I have been here when he made that play against Nebraska in 1980. They were fixing to go in and beat us and all of a sudden he makes a sack and forces a fumble. We win the game. I think that is probably the biggest one play in the 31 years I have been at Florida State. He is the daddy.

Q: Drew Weatherford mentioned how much film study he has done and learned from since the conclusion of last season, how much have you seen him mature and how much do you think his almost unhealthy obsession of watching film will benefit him this coming season?

Bobby Bowden: You would be scared if they didn't. If my coach said that Drew don't ever come in and watch film that would kind of scare you. They have got to study it. The great ones do. I am glad to hear he has which doesn't surprise. I think the other quarterbacks have been doing a lot of it too. There is an entirely different feeling going into this season with Drew having 12 games under his belt and playing the teams we have played, the defensive teams we have played such as Miami, Virginia Tech, Florida, N.C. State and against some other dog gone good defenses and he survived it and ended up being the most prolific freshman quarterback in the country as far as stats are concerned. I feel good going in. It is nearly like he is a senior but he is not, he is only a sophomore. I feel real good about him, I feel very confident about him but he is still only a sophomore.

Q: As a freshman last year prior to the Virginia Tech game he spoke to the team, what does that say about him and his leadership ability?

Bobby Bowden: Well, he is a leader. It is not a secret to you or anybody else that knows Drew. He is a natural born leader, just like number seven(Buster Davis) that was up here a while ago. First time I ever met Buster I told him 'Son, you can be one of our leaders if you come to Florida State' and he is a leader. Now Drew is the same way, he is a leader. You don't have to be a senior to lead. We expect it out of our seniors but Drew is one of those guys that just can't help it. Our kids believe in him, they have a lot of faith in him.

Q: Did he have the best season of any freshman quarterback you have ever had?

Bobby Bowden: Well, we don't usually start freshmen. He is the second freshman I have had to start maybe since I have been here. I think everybody else was a red-shirt junior or a red-shirt senior or something like that except (Chris) Weinke was an old sophomore. Yeah, he probably had the best freshman year of anybody that we have had.

Q: What do you think the last two games of last season against Virginia Tech and Penn State did for this team and can that carry over into this year?

Bobby Bowden: Well, we are trying use it to our advantage from playing Virginia Tech who was the number one defensive team in the nation last year and the number one offensive team in our conference I believe and beating them. Then playing Penn State who was a tremendous football team and if there was ever a veteran team, Joe (Paterno) had a veteran team last year. Then nearly winning, we will naturally remind our players of that and try to build off of it going into this year because during the last two games we looked like we were as good as anybody in the country. I got after our players after last year and I got after our coaches at least making it known to them that we are a funny team, we play good people and we play pretty good, we play people that we are favored over and we don't play them good and we get beat. We played pretty good against Miami, Boston College, Penn State, and Virginia Tech and maybe some others but maybe teams that we were favored over by 10 or seven or 14, they just beat the crap out of us. We have to play good every Saturday if we want to get back to where we were. We sure tried to stress that.

Q: Where does that start, learning to play consistently?

Bobby Bowden: Well, you hope you learned from last year, you hope you learned through experience. You hope you learned through experience. You have to be ready to play every Saturday.