As do I. That's a long time and many great defenses under his guidance. He should be proud.
TS, How much influence do you think this will have on Bowden's thinking in terms of his own retirement?
I guess this is as good as anytime for me to say Bowden should have the right to retire when he wants, but if I were a Seminole I think I would find myself wishing he'd get the good sense to retire now and save a whole lot of uncomfortable situations ahead. I can't blame him for wanting to stay on, but he needs to think about his legacy.
That's a really good question, and forgive me if I ramble but it is a complicated situation.
I think Mickey's retirement will have an indirect effect on when Bowden retires.
The first thing I need to say is that Bowden convinced Mickey to come back 2 years ago, after Mickey's son died and it was obvious that he wanted to spend more time with his family. He did this because Mickey had been so great for so long but also because Bowden doesn't have a lot of coaching connections anymore. He had nobody on staff that could replace Mickey.
Today, there is someone on staff that he would like to replace Mickey and that man is Chuck Amato. There are two problems with this. The most important problem is that Chuck Amato is not a good coach or recruiter. The second problem is that Bowden will only be on staff for one more year, if even that. Do you allow Bowden to hire a guy that a) Jimbo Fisher doesn't like and b) will only be a defensive coordinator for 1 year? Lately, I have been hearing that there is basically no way FSU will hire their next defensive coordinator from within.
Now let me veer off here into Jimbo's contract. Word is Jimbo and FSU have been working on his head coach contract over the past month. From what I understand, part of the terms would allow Jimbo to make the decision on who the next defensive coordinator is, maybe even all of the staff decisions. He would be able to fire anyone he wants except Bowden.
Giving Jimbo the ability to make the decisions on the staff allows him to do something he has not been able to do before. Jimbo has never been able to bring in "his" coaches, not even on offense.
If that happens, what does that mean for Bobby Bowden? He becomes a figure head with zero control over the team. The question now is, would Bowden want to do this? Why would he stick around? For money? For wins?
Mickey's retirement will likely create a domino effect for massive changes on FSU's staff, and Bowden will likely lose control over who his assistants are.
There have been alot of articles over the past month about who FSU would look at for a new defensive coordinator. Most of them are based on who Jimbo has connections with and people with FSU connections. The three most prominent names I have seen are Greg Hudson (the defensive coordinator for East Carolina), Kirby Smart (defensive coordinator for Alabama), and Karl Dunbar (defensive line coach for the Minnesota Vikings). Hudson coached with Jimbo at the University of Cincinnati I believe. Smart was a graduate assistant at FSU. Dunbar coached with Jimbo at LSU.
