FEDEX ORANGE BOWL: OKLAHOMA v FLORIDA STATE

December 31, 2000

Bobby Bowden

COACH BOWDEN: The nerves? You mean here in Miami? No problem on that. My nerves don't work anymore. I'm getting too old for nerves.

COACH BOWDEN: They seem to have responded real well so far, our players. I haven't seen anything out of line. Of course, you've still got three more nights; so you keep your fingers crossed any time you have this many boys away from home. Keep your fingers crossed.

COACH BOWDEN: You know, I never like to play Florida in a major Bowl, and I never like to play Miami in a major Bowl. It's just too contesting. Now, Florida State and Oklahoma don't have that. Their kids don't know our kids and our kid don't know their kids, and when they have run into each other, it has been very cordial. But if Florida State runs into Miami or Miami runs into Florida or those things, it's just that the kids are raised together and there's a competition among them that can lead to what happened the other night.

COACH BOWDEN: You're always, when you look at film, you're looking for a flaw you're looking for some kind of flaw. You're looking for something they are doing that's not sound that you can pick off. So you look at them over and over and over and try to find as much as you can.

COACH BOWDEN: I wouldn't divulge it if I could, as you know, but, no, they don't get to where they are having a lot of flaws.

COACH BOWDEN: I don't know, I couldn't answer that one.

COACH BOWDEN: No. We'd rather be doing this than not doing it, and I don't get very tired of it.

COACH BOWDEN: Haven't heard a bit of it. You know, I get asked that a lot. I haven't had one person say anything offensive about us being here and the University of Miami. And sure, they must feel that way, but nobody has mentioned it. I imagine now they are pulling for us. If they are Miami fans, they are pulling for us so that Miami will have a chance to win the Associated Press No. 1.

COACH BOWDEN: If you give it to me right now, to share it right now, just to have it, no, I would have no problem with that. If we were lucky enough to beat Oklahoma and win the BCS, I have no problem with what happens at the other Bowl.

COACH BOWDEN: Did I make any New Year's resolution or will I make any resolutions? No. I don't need to. (Laughter).

COACH BOWDEN: Well, you're right. As you go back down through your history, there are always some teams you simply could not beat. Now Penn State was always that way with me. I never could -- when I was at West Virginia, we could never beat Penn State. And when we came here for years and years, Miami just kept getting us, but we began to even that out somehow. But Oklahoma is one that I never was able to beat Coach Switzer, and never have beat them as a head football coach. So you would love that to happen. My kids would not pay any attention to that if I mentioned it. They were not even born. They were not even born the last time we were down here. Naturally, you would like to win that game.

COACH BOWDEN: Well, how many days are there in 20 years? A lot of days, a lot of days have passed since 1981. We're better. We have better people now than we had back in those days.

COACH BOWDEN: I know you would wonder about that. You've just done this, your teams have just done this. You had 14 teams, Top-4 finishes, are you elated over that? No. Why? Because I've got another ballgame. If I retired, would I be elated? Yes. I'll write you all a letter about it and tell what you it means to me. But when you've got another ballgame, you're always afraid you're going to get whipped, and the equalizer is right in the next moment. It will get you level-headed right quick. So I don't look back on what has happened.

COACH BOWDEN: Fear pushes me, yes. I've always felt like fear pushes me, yes. I've always felt like fear pushes me. I felt like I've always been motivated by fear. I coach hard. I try to coach -- I try to get everything planned before the game because I'm afraid of making a mistake or something like that. That motivates me.

COACH BOWDEN: Since the earlier days, not so much the philosophy. It's just that after years and years of experience at the same school, you begin to get better players and become more successful. That's what's happened here.

COACH BOWDEN: Well, how important is that? You hope it would be important. You wish it would be important, the fact that we've been three here years in a row -- but I think that is all up to Oklahoma. They will determine how important that is.

COACH BOWDEN: Yeah, I'm surprised, us being No. 3 and 1 Bowl and 2 in the BCS and them undefeated No. 1. Yeah, I'm surprised. When we played Nebraska right here in 1994 for the National Championship, we were 17-point favorites. They are were No. 1, we were No. 2, and yet we were 17-point favorites, and, of course, they led with us with about two minutes to go and we finally won it. I know that you get into this ballgame here and those old point spreads don't mean anything. In fact, what I'm seeing on television, it seems the underdogs are winning more than the favorites, it seems like.

COACH BOWDEN: Well, there's no doubt about it. The guy that makes us click is Chris Weinke, and he is the same thing to them. I think what Chris means to us, he means to them. Both of us must have our quarterbacks.

COACH BOWDEN: The Oklahoma defense is like all defenses: They never get the good words that they should. You look at Oklahoma's football team, and like all offenses -- offenses struggle. Offenses struggle, and their defense has been so good. It's been able to keep them out of the losing column. It's been able to hang in there until they could get things going. Their defense is like ours and everybody else's; it's the most underrated part of their game. They have got a super defense.

COACH BOWDEN: The night before a ballgame, I meet with the offensive staff and we go through everything we can think of that could possibly happen in that ballgame and record it, and that's our game plan. After that's over, I have no trouble sleeping.

COACH BOWDEN: Well, it seems like something comes up that you didn't account for. That's why we try to cover everything that can happen, and after as many years as I've been coaching, I've heard a long list of things that can occur.

COACH BOWDEN: It sure throws up to the top. You know, it is amazing, I could be surrounded by other people like you, I go to a meeting or a coach's clinic and there ain't old people around there except Joe and me. Where's George? Where are the guys our age? It makes you wonder, should I be in this darned thing? (Laughs.)

COACH BOWDEN: No. Never.

COACH BOWDEN: Well, we felt like the Achilles tendon of our football team going in was a seasoned kicker, and we had not seen anybody in spring training that looked like they were the answer. So you bring a freshman in and pulls a groin muscle and can't kick; he struggles. So it has been our biggest liability so far, our kicking. It's gotten better. It has got better, kicking, fielding extra points and short field goals; and then Munyon will still have to be the long ball kicker because he has got the best leg, but we are not as confident as we would like to be.

COACH BOWDEN: Is it flattering? It is not flattering until after the game. Again, I go back to the scaredy-cat. I'm scared. So don't flatter me yet. After the game, it will flatter me a little bit.

COACH BOWDEN: I don't know. I do not know. But we simply have not been an underdog in so long, I forgot what it was like. I think the last time we were underdogs was against Florida when they beat us for the National Championship here. I think that's the last time we were underdogs.

COACH BOWDEN: Well, it's the way I was raised. I was raised as an underdog. Always, when I played college ball, we never won over five games. When I coached my first couple years, we won one game one year and two the next. When I was at West Virginia we were always underdogs to Penn State and Ohio State. So down here it has been the other way around. It is different for me.

COACH BOWDEN: Yeah.

COACH BOWDEN: They are so young, I can't even believe it. They are young, but they are very intelligent. They know what they are doing. He's done a great job. Don't forget, we were young, too, right?

COACH BOWDEN: Yeah, it is amazing, but that seems to be the trends nowadays. Tommy goes to Tulane and he went undefeated his second year; and Terry goes to Auburn and he is undefeated his first year. Now, the old man coached 45 years and never went undefeated; so the trend with these young coaches is amazing. So, Bob, it is just amazing. I don't know how he did it so quickly.

COACH BOWDEN: My style with Bob? I would think, you know, just what I've known about him, I would think me and him are a little bit alike. Probably a little bit alike. I'm so much older, but when I was his age -- he does some things that reminds me of things I tried to do.

COACH BOWDEN: Attitude. Positive attitude. That's the first thing I picked up on him. Nothing is negative with him. It's all positive.

COACH BOWDEN: Older. When I first started coaching, I was too young, really. I was 25 when I got my first head job. I was older than some of the -- that was after the war and a lot of the kids came back from the service. I had boys 26, 27 -- not many, but I was 25, and trying to look old. It seems like so much of my career I was too young, and then the first thing you know you're too old; so it gets away from you.

COACH BOWDEN: I think the older you get, you have to.

COACH BOWDEN: I just think the older you get, the more you realize the dependence that you have on your assistants. And even more than that, I think football has changed so much, you simply have to turn more over. It used to be you could sit here on the sidelines, and some coaches still do this, but not many -- Steve Spurrier he'll sit on the sideline and call his offensive plays. I'd rather be upstairs where you could see what's happening better. So with the way formations are nowadays and the sophistication of offenses and everything, I think that you have to see it up there.

COACH BOWDEN: Is it hard to relate to younger players? Yes -- I try not to let it be something that would stand in the way, but it is hard for me to -- I think I can understand, but it's hard for me to accept some of the ways of the young people nowadays that we didn't do when we came up.

COACH BOWDEN: The morals of the young people nowadays are so different from when I was in high school or college. We were not any better. We were not any better. Back in those days, there was three things you can get into, and now there's 300 things that you can get into. It's tougher on these young kids.

COACH BOWDEN: I don't do that. You don't because you've always got another game. If I was retiring, then I'd reflect back and probably enjoy it for about an hour. It don't last long. It don't last long. If we lose this game, it won't be a success.

COACH BOWDEN: That's the way it goes. I think that's the way we all are, people. If you made $1 million, you want two. If you get two, you want three. Nobody is happy. Nobody is satisfied. Same thing in coaching. I want one every year. Every year.

COACH BOWDEN: No. My health would have to dictate that. As long as my health good, I have no desire.

COACH BOWDEN: Fire is there.

COACH BOWDEN: I really don't know. People ask me why, I don't know.

COACH BOWDEN: We have just been doggone fortunate, and it goes back to having good players. You've got to have good players, and then you've got to have a good staff. I have been very fortunate that we have the good staff part of it. If you notice, last year I lost a coach of 18 years, and this year we're losing one that's been with us for 15 years. So we've got our work cut out.

COACH BOWDEN: I would think that you would have to say it is the start of something. It definitely can be the start of something. But what has happened to us, I don't know why we have been as fortunate as we are. What's happened to us these last three years is harder now than it was 15 years ago when a team like Alabama or Notre Dame -- (inaudible) -- they have your players and theirs. You don't have enough scholarships to take other people. So parity is a little bit more obvious today, and that's why I -- I don't know how or why we've been able to do what we've done.

COACH BOWDEN: Not with the kicking. I am with the punting, but not with the field goals. Not with the field goals. We felt like we've gotten better at it. We have made some strides on it. The biggest change, the last time we played in this stadium right here, we came in with the idea if it was fourth and short, we were going to go for it rather than kick a field goal. But we don't have any confidence on field goal kicking, and we were right. We went from about 12-yard line -- (inaudible) -- so we started going for it and didn't make it and got beat by three points. So I feel a little bit better now kicking than we were that day, but it is still a liability.

COACH BOWDEN: Inside the 30, the ball is inside the 30 or the spot of the ball is on the third? We're kicking from the 30 or we're snapping from the 30? See, if your snapping from the 30, that's a 47-yard field goal. It's a fourth down -- if it was short, we'd probably go for it.

COACH BOWDEN: I think we've improved, yeah.

COACH BOWDEN: Yeah, I said I want to be perfect for extra points and field goal inside the 30. If we can just do that, at least we don't -- we kick that field goal. Anything out, we've got to make a decision.

COACH BOWDEN: He is as important to me as any football coach on our staff. Not only the great job he's done with strength of our team, he's made this one of the strongest teams in the country. But the leadership that he deals our players, it is immeasurable.

COACH BOWDEN: The most I can remember, I think we lost 14 starters seven or eight years ago, and we still overcame it with a 10-win season. So now next year is going to be that type of a found-out-what-we got. So we're going to change from a team that is mature and experienced to a team that's young, inexperienced, but talented. The talent level is not going to change, but experience level is. And you can't coach experience. You can't coach experience. It's just got to happen. So we'll be fighting for our life next year. That's what makes you -- that's what makes you enjoy coaching.

COACH BOWDEN: Boy, I hate that, too. We lost quality coaches, but I've got other quality coaches on the staff. I hope I don't lose anymore, but I could. A lot of guys want to coach at Florida State. I know that. So we'll go out and get the best replacement we can.

COACH BOWDEN: No, I didn't realize -- I did not realize he would reach this level. I was hoping. I really felt like when Chris came back. I felt like, No. 1, we've got a chance. We are now back in the fire. No. 2, I did think that he's going to have a chance to win a Heisman Trophy, but I didn't think he would be as good as he is.

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