Bobby Bowden has said that he’s never seen his offense play worse than it did in the first half against Clemson. I don’t know if someone could come up with some stats to prove otherwise, but when you go for 62 yards in 31 plays, and the first play of the game was for 22 yards, that’s really bad.
Sunday Morning Quarterback says that those comments may be some kind of strike against Jimbo Fisher and Rick Trickett. That’s something I didn’t think of when I first read that story. I and a lot of other people probably assumed that Bobby was upset that Jeff left, but that he’d move on because nothing is more important than winning in football. However, this comment could be a sign that he’s still upset about Jeff being gone and it’s his way of letting everyone know that he still doesn’t think Jeff was a problem.
If all that is true, it could set up a spectacular self-destruction in the FSU program if Bobby is really going to be obstinate about this issue. If the offense doesn’t improve, it will only be the new coaches’ fault to a degree because the talent, especially on the line, is just not there. However, since Bobby didn’t think Jeff was a problem in the first place (despite him being a huge downgrade from Mark Richt), he might just be at the point in his career that he’s willing to prove a point for personal reasons. He has nothing left to prove and no one at FSU will ever try to force him out, so why not try to save your son’s reputation by proving that even the hotshot Jimbo Fisher can’t save the offense? He knows the media eats out of his hand anyway, so more comments like this could be a way to try to get them to start writing “It wasn’t Jeff’s fault after all” columns.
Now, as much as I dislike Bobby, I don’t think this is the case. He’s competitive, and competitive people don’t tend to sacrifice wins for anything. In addition, though I question some of his tactics he teaches his players, it’s a pretty big leap to go from defenses being overzealous in their hitting and sabotaging your own team to save your son’s reputation. It’s a nice conspiracy theory and could lead to hundreds of posts on message boards, but I don’t think it’s true. Unless…
