Q & A: Bobby Bowden Part 1

What is the status on Tony Carter? Do you expect to get him back for the Boston College game?

Bowden: You know, I'd rather doubt it. There is a chance because he did take his knee out of the brace last week and he did work out some, but I didn't see him do any kind of cutting. I didn't see him do any kind of cutting. All I saw him do was going straight forward and straight back, so I would doubt he would be able to play in a game like this. But you never know. I imagine in the morning when we meet, my trainer will say, 'No, he's out.' Or he'll say, 'Maybe, but we won't know until Thursday.'


Some of the players were talking yesterday about the possibility of getting back into the championship race and getting back to Jacksonville. Is that something you want to encourage or do you think that is a distraction?

Bowden: I don't even talk about it. We're still far down. Miracles would have to occur, and miracles would have to occur from other people. Until it becomes realistic, I won't even discuss it with my players. All we can do is do our best to win the next game, you know. And if that does happen, I'm sure mathematically, it's still a possibility, but other people would have to lose. As far as us saying, “Men, we've got to get in this (ACC championship game) and win,” no. We've let that slip by as far as staying on pace. All we can do is take one game at a time and hope some miracle happens. But if we don't win, it's out anyway.

With all the knee injuries you've had is there anything you can point to in terms of the way you train or the focus on the off-season program?

Bowden: You know, when you have something like that occur, you start looking back and say, “Is there something we're leaving out?” But I don't think so. Last year it seemed like all of our injuries occurred on the offense. Our offensive linemen, especially. We'd have two centers hurt or we'd have a guard hurt or we'd have a tackle hurt. It seemed like all our injuries were in one area. Or a running back would be out. We lost Leon Washington for three or four games last year. We lost so and so. Now this year it's all defense, and I can't ever remember it like that. I can't remember it happening with the defense. It seemed like all our injuries occurred on offense. I have never seen anything like it.

You go into that ballgame with your three best linebackers back. But you start off the season with seven that could play. Now you are down to three, and in a quarter your other starter (Geno Hayes) goes out. It's not his bad knee. It's his other knee. Looking at him after the game on crutches, I don't believe he could be ready anytime soon. And then . . . excuse me for laughing, but his backup got hurt, by the way, with a pulled muscle. I don't know what we're going to do, but we'll do something.

You mentioned you watched Boston College and Virginia Tech the other night. What did you think of Boston College?


Bowden: They looked mighty solid, as solid as anybody I've seen. Very solid football team . . . They lost to N.C. State the same way we did. They lost on the last play of the game. They were ahead 15-10, I believe, and lost on the last play of the game. The guy (N.C. State quarterback Daniel Evans) hit about a 40-yard something pass on them. That's the only loss they've got. They looked solid as heck last week in beating Virginia Tech ... They looked as good as anybody else. I figure it's a big, physical, solid football team. If there is anybody we don't need to be playing in this league, it's somebody that's physical.

Because of the shortage of bodies at linebacker, do you start looking at pulling players from other positions or redoing your formation so you aren't playing so many linebackers at one time?

Bowden: Well, we can't play a lot of linebackers at one time. We don't have them. Our two basic defenses this year, as last year, is No. 1, a 4-3. Then, No. 2, a 3-4. With a 3-4, you put four of your good linebackers in and take out one of your defensive linemen. Well, last year we did that because we got some of our down linemen hurt. So we had to go with three down and four linebackers. Now this year, we are having to stay with four down linemen because we can't get four linebackers out there. So yeah, it looks pretty sure it's going to force four down linemen, a 4-3. But what it you don't have enough linebackers? Well, you've got to take one of those little defensive backs. You've got to take a defensive back. That's what we did last week. We moved (Toddrick) Verdell ... We moved him up from safety and worked him in as a linebacker last week. I think he pulled a muscle. So anyway you have to go back there and start grabbing some of those DBs, and say 'Son, you must be a linebacker.' But I don't know if we've gotten to that point or not. You move one of those linemen, and he's too big to play back there, and the defensive backs are too small. But you've got to put somebody back there. I'm not sure exactly what we'll do with that. I've got to get an injury report in the morning and see where we stand with everybody.