College football is a sport full of constant argument and debate. So it only makes sense for something as simple as a number to bring about even more controversy.
With Florida State's 48-24 win over Wake Forest on Saturday, Seminoles coach Bobby Bowden recorded his 339th career victory, thus passing Joe Paterno on themajor college football's all-time wins list. The only difference in these records? Bowden's shouldn't count. Or should at least contain an asterisk or clause of some sort.
Bowden has spent 44 years in the game, beginning his career at Samford University (then Howard College) where he picked up his first 31 wins.
Where? Exactly.
Samford University is a Div. 1-AA school located in Bowden's home state of Alabama. Wins at Div. I-AA schools should not count in Bowden's record, or anyone's. Bowden went on to record 45 wins at West Virginia and 266 wins at Florida State.
Knock off Bowden's 31 wins at Samford, and he only has 308 wins. The question is why does Bowden's record while coaching at Samford count towards his overall record?
Bowden coached at Howard before the NCAA divided schools into divisions, so all colleges were considered the same, even though the comparison is absurd. Bowden's first three career victories came against three Tennessee schools - Maryville, Sewanee, and Tennessee Tech's B-Team. Paterno's first three career victories came against Maryland, Boston College and West Virginia.
In Paterno's first season as football coach, he faced such powerhouses as Michigan State and UCLA and recorded back-to-back undefeated seasons just three years into his head-coaching career.
Former Grambling coach Eddie Robinson holds the all-time college record with 408 wins, while John Gagliardi of St. John's (Minn.) has 407. Why not include them? Because Grambling and St. John's are Div. III and II schools respectively.
Victories and records can constantly be disputed. A strong record for a coach doesn't necessarily make him great. I'm not trying to say Paterno is a better coach than Bowden. I'm simply trying to give Paterno the credit he deserves, and take away the credit from Bowden that he does not deserve due to his previous I-AA coaching status and conference affiliation.
Not to take anything away from Bowden's accomplishments at Florida State - the Seminoles did set a record for 14-straight top five finishes from 1987 to 2000 - but where Paterno has coached all 447 of his games at one school (plus another 134 as an assistant), Bowden's wins stretch over three different schools.
In the mid-1980s Bowden would've taken the Alabama coaching job at the drop of a hat, but since he was only offered an interview as a "candidate" he stayed at Florida State. Previously, at the end of the 1972 season, Paterno was offered a very lucrative deal to coach for the New England Patriots and instead decided to stay loyal to the school he had been coaching at for 22 years. (The 1973 Nittany Lion football team would go on to post a perfect 12-0 season, without a national championship to show for it, to finish off Paterno's "Grand Experiment.")
So maybe Bowden deserves the record. He's helped build Florida State into a powerhouse, taking them from barely a blip on the map to a top 25 finisher each year. But there should at least be a little asterisk next to Bowden's record. Something to show that Bowden's first 31 wins were against such no-names as the University of Mexico and Gordon Military College.
Paterno and Bowden brush off the records as if they don't count for anything. With Paterno's constant humbleness, he will continue to brush off any records he breaks or honors he earns. That's just his nature.
Bowden deserves respect for coaching his Florida State teams to 266 wins in his 27 years at the school. But after all the hard work and loyalty that Paterno has put into one school, after all that Paterno has done for football, after all that Paterno has done for one school, his record deserves to stand. No one should take that away from him, especially not Bobby Bowden.
