Q & A: Jeff Bowden

Again, no points in the first half. Why is that happening?

Bowden: It looks like turnovers right now to me. We had a drive going on early, and we fumbled the ball. That's probably the best explanation I can give you.

Your offense ranks 105th nationally in total offense. What has to be done to get it better?

Bowden: I would be more concerned with being 3-0 rather than where we are ranked. It's not the standards you want, but neither is 2-1. Going into this last game I would have stayed happy with the plan we had, had we come out with a win.

The only other thing that you could have done for us is to kind of revert back and spread the field and give Drew some more at-bats where he can build up those great passing stats and maybe throw some picks. No, I'm not happy with that (FSU's 105th ranking).

Beyond the quarterback position, do you have the right personnel in the game? Is that something you have to look at?

Bowden: Yeah, a little bit. Greg Carr has got to play better and practice better. He is going to try, but he has done neither.

You're feeling really good about Rich Goodman, and he drops a touchdown. You say, “Shoot, why wasn't Chris Davis in there?”

Well, because Rich had played well and you had no reason he wouldn't make the play. I'm going to guarantee the right people are in the right position next time.

You had your running game going a little bit.

Bowden: That was one thing I told the kids. We said before the game we were going to stay with the run and be patient with the run. Last year we were real quick in the second half to abandon it and to go to the pass. That's exactly what they wanted us to and we didn't do it. We gave ourselves a chance in the game. We got back in the game. Late in the game the biggest mistake we made was a third-and-1 that we didn't convert, we should have converted. That was Joe (Surratt's run in the fourth quarter for no gain).

Wasn't that kind of an expected play?

Bowden: Let me put it this way. If they expected it, they didn't defend it because we blocked. We just didn't hit the hole.

Greg Carr, we didn't really see him Saturday night (with no passes to him).

Bowden: You saw him more in the second half. He hasn't played well in games like I expect him to. He hasn't blocked like I expect him to. On top of that, we had some routes that Chris Davis was a little better running at then Greg. And we felt comfortable with Richard Goodman.

Isn't it tough to keep arguably your top player out?

Bowden: If it costs us a game, yeah. But that didn't cost us a game.

Your dad wants to see Xavier (Lee) in the game. Will there be a specific plan?

Bowden: We had a plan last week. We had a plan the week before. I sure would like to see that plan happen.

Evaluate your offensive line.

Bowden: We're not playing as well as we can yet. We showed the offense a bunch of cutups where we had some potentially big runs in the game where we are either falling off a linebacker block, not cutting off the backside, or we do that and a run bounces to the outside and a receiver is not blocking on the perimeter. They were all pretty bothered by what they saw. There was a lot of potential for big runs in that ballgame.

Still not reading the message boards or papers?

Bowden: Why?

Well, your starting quarterback is taking a lot of heat right now.
Bowden: Every team that just lost, that's the guy probably taking the heat right now.

Does he have happy feet?

Bowden: He hadn't had protection like he's getting (now). . . . I think the protection in my opinion has been pretty good. . . . Now I'm waiting for the light to click. It's there - sit in there, be patient, let things happen. I think he will. That's why I'm not going to panic on it yet. It's too early - too early in the year.

In previous seasons when you've had a starting quarterback maybe not playing as well, sometimes you have made a change to create a spark. You're not at that point yet?

Bowden: I don't know. It's something we'll talk about it.

Are you saying you don't have a clear number one right now?

Bowden: No. You're not right about that.