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Bowden Criticizes NCAA
Bobby Bowden
Bobby Bowden
By Larry Vettel
Senior Writer
Posted May 11, 2009

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Florida State football coach Bobby Bowden voiced some more displeasure with the NCAA as he concluded his tour of the state in West Palm Beach Saturday. Bowden told Tom D’Angelo of the Palm Beach Post that he isn't shocked that the NCAA could become the deciding factor on who is the all-time winningest college football coach.

He also said requiring the Seminoles to forfeit games due to an academic scandal was out of line.

"I think they're really stepping out of bounds by doing that," Bowden said “Maybe they'll change their minds once they think it over real good."

Bowden said the bottom line is that Florida State officials took care of the situation already.

"It's seems unfair what they are doing because we spotted the problem, we reported it, we took care of it and the kids were punished," Bowden said.

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The issue of forfeiting 14 wins is a big one with the Seminoles coach who is in his own personal battle with Penn State’s Joe Paterno to be the winningest major college coach of all time.

Officially Bowden has 382 wins, one fewer than the Nittany Lions’ mentor and taking away 14 wins would all but guarantee the to spot to Paterno. However many believe the race is a phony one anyway since Bowden’s win total includes 31 wins at Howard College (now Samford) in the 1950s. Howard was certainly not a “major” college at the time, or even now, but the NCAA had not yet split into divisions so technically ALL schools were “major” schools back then.

Florida State appealed the forfeiture aspect of the NCAA sanctions it received and is awaiting response from the committee on infractions. The committee could uphold the forfeitures or drop that penalty. In its report on the FSU case the committee indicated FSU would have faced more significant scholarship penalties had the forfeiture sanction not been included. So it’s possible the school will get its wins back in exchange for other punishments.



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