Bobby Bowden and The Rise Of Florida State Football
Hardcore College Football History
7,219 views
Bobby Bowden planned to spend two or three years at Florida State and go home to Alabama. He stayed 34 years, won two national championships, and finished in the top five of the Associated Press poll 14 consecutive seasons. This is the full Bobby Bowden documentary: the history of Florida State football from a 1905 act of the Florida legislature to the dynasty years.
Bowden said it himself: "I went down there to get back home." Florida State was supposed to be a steppingstone.
To understand how improbable the stay was, you have to start four decades before he drove into Tallahassee. In 1905 the state of Florida consolidated six institutions into three. The men went to Gainesville and took the football team with them. Florida State College became a school for women, and for 42 years it had no football and no male students. Then the G.I. Bill sent returning World War II veterans looking for a college, the governor signed an act in 1947 making Florida State University coeducational, and the Seminoles played their first game since 1904 in front of about 8,000 people at Centennial Field. They went 0-5.
From there the program grew in fits and starts. Don Veller built a winner in the Dixie Conference. Tom Nugent worked through most of the 1950s with modest results. Bill Peterson arrived in 1960, brought a pro-style passing attack to the college game, and produced Fred Biletnikoff, the first consensus All-American in school history. Then Larry Jones went 0-11 in 1973, Darrell Mudra went 4-18 in two seasons, the stands at Doak Campbell Stadium sat half empty, and people in Tallahassee were asking whether Florida State should keep playing football at all.
Bowden took the job in January 1976 for $37,500 a year. He lost his first three games, finished 5-6 in his only losing season at Florida State, and then won 10 games in 1977 and beat Florida 37-9. By 1979 the Seminoles were unbeaten in the regular season. Alabama came calling in 1986, again in 1990, and Bowden turned them down both times.
In this video: the Buckman Act and the end of football at Florida State College, the 1947 return and the 0-5 season, Bill Peterson and Fred Biletnikoff, the Larry Jones and Darrell Mudra collapse, Bobby Bowden's childhood bout with rheumatic fever and the one semester at Alabama, South Georgia College and Howard College, West Virginia and the Marshall plane crash, the 1976 rebuild, Ron Simmons and the 1979 team, the Alabama job that never arrived, Deion Sanders and the 1987 Fiesta Bowl team, Mickey Andrews and the defense, Wide Right I and Wide Right II against Miami, Charlie Ward's Heisman season, and the 1993 Orange Bowl against Nebraska that finally delivered the national title.
I have a personal footnote in this one. In October 1980, as a freshman at the University of Nebraska, I watched Florida State beat the Huskers 18-14 in Lincoln. Memorial Stadium gave Bowden's team a standing ovation, and Bowden wrote a letter afterward thanking Nebraska fans for their sportsmanship. Thirteen years later his team beat Nebraska in the Orange Bowl for his first national championship.
I'm Jon Johnston with Hardcore College Football History. Thanks for watching.
0:00 The Architect of a Dynasty
1:12 When the Team Disappeared
4:17 The Struggle to Find an Identity
7:56 Bobby Bowden - A Man From Birmingham
12:07 Turning the Tide in Tallahassee
19:13 The Heartbreak of Wide Right
#BobbyBowden #FloridaState #FSU #FloridaStateFootball #Seminoles #CollegeFootball #CollegeFootballHistory #FootballHistory #BobbyBowdenDocumentary #CharlieWard #DeionSanders #WideRight #HardcoreCollegeFootballHistory
20 Comments
Dan Mowrey wasn’t 3-3 prior to the last kick. He was 3-5. He had missed from 38 and 39 before the last miss from 39.
Mowrey was 3-6 on that day
Bobby Bowden and The Rise Of Florida State Football
Hardcore College Football History
7,219 views
Bobby Bowden planned to spend two or three years at Florida State and go home to Alabama. He stayed 34 years, won two national championships, and finished in the top five of the Associated Press poll 14 consecutive seasons. This is the full Bobby Bowden documentary: the history of Florida State football from a 1905 act of the Florida legislature to the dynasty years.
Bowden said it himself: "I went down there to get back home." Florida State was supposed to be a steppingstone.
To understand how improbable the stay was, you have to start four decades before he drove into Tallahassee. In 1905 the state of Florida consolidated six institutions into three. The men went to Gainesville and took the football team with them. Florida State College became a school for women, and for 42 years it had no football and no male students. Then the G.I. Bill sent returning World War II veterans looking for a college, the governor signed an act in 1947 making Florida State University coeducational, and the Seminoles played their first game since 1904 in front of about 8,000 people at Centennial Field. They went 0-5.
From there the program grew in fits and starts. Don Veller built a winner in the Dixie Conference. Tom Nugent worked through most of the 1950s with modest results. Bill Peterson arrived in 1960, brought a pro-style passing attack to the college game, and produced Fred Biletnikoff, the first consensus All-American in school history. Then Larry Jones went 0-11 in 1973, Darrell Mudra went 4-18 in two seasons, the stands at Doak Campbell Stadium sat half empty, and people in Tallahassee were asking whether Florida State should keep playing football at all.
Bowden took the job in January 1976 for $37,500 a year. He lost his first three games, finished 5-6 in his only losing season at Florida State, and then won 10 games in 1977 and beat Florida 37-9. By 1979 the Seminoles were unbeaten in the regular season. Alabama came calling in 1986, again in 1990, and Bowden turned them down both times.
In this video: the Buckman Act and the end of football at Florida State College, the 1947 return and the 0-5 season, Bill Peterson and Fred Biletnikoff, the Larry Jones and Darrell Mudra collapse, Bobby Bowden's childhood bout with rheumatic fever and the one semester at Alabama, South Georgia College and Howard College, West Virginia and the Marshall plane crash, the 1976 rebuild, Ron Simmons and the 1979 team, the Alabama job that never arrived, Deion Sanders and the 1987 Fiesta Bowl team, Mickey Andrews and the defense, Wide Right I and Wide Right II against Miami, Charlie Ward's Heisman season, and the 1993 Orange Bowl against Nebraska that finally delivered the national title.
I have a personal footnote in this one. In October 1980, as a freshman at the University of Nebraska, I watched Florida State beat the Huskers 18-14 in Lincoln. Memorial Stadium gave Bowden's team a standing ovation, and Bowden wrote a letter afterward thanking Nebraska fans for their sportsmanship. Thirteen years later his team beat Nebraska in the Orange Bowl for his first national championship.
I'm Jon Johnston with Hardcore College Football History. Thanks for watching.
0:00 The Architect of a Dynasty
1:12 When the Team Disappeared
4:17 The Struggle to Find an Identity
7:56 Bobby Bowden - A Man From Birmingham
12:07 Turning the Tide in Tallahassee
19:13 The Heartbreak of Wide Right
#BobbyBowden #FloridaState #FSU #FloridaStateFootball #Seminoles #CollegeFootball #CollegeFootballHistory #FootballHistory #BobbyBowdenDocumentary #CharlieWard #DeionSanders #WideRight #HardcoreCollegeFootballHistory