Bowden, Seminoles Feeling the Heat

With the exception of injured Tim Tebow, the top-ranked Florida Gators are right where they want to be one month into the college football season. The same could be said further South, where the Miami Hurricanes survived a brutal four-game stretch to merit top-10 consideration.

The mood in Florida's Panhandle, however, is far different. Slumping Florida State and its iconic coach, Bobby Bowden, are off to their worst start in more than a quarter of a century, creating an uncomfortable predicament that has left Bowden defending his program and fending off critics who are demanding immediate change in Tallahassee, Fla.

"I've been through it (before)," Bowden said Sunday during his teleconference with the media. "I don't do a lot of reading when we are doing bad. A lot of times people tell me but I don't do a lot of reading when we are doing bad. I will determine my situation, with Florida State University, when my move has to come."

Bowden further explained that any guesswork regarding his timetable to pasture is unnecessary, saying, "I already know in the back of my mind when I want to leave here. I won't let some guy's speculation tell me when to move or what decision to make. If it has something to do with that, it will be based with me and our president of our university."

Boston College recovered after blowing an 18-point advantage on Saturday to beat visiting FSU 28-21, sending Bowden and the Seminoles to 2-3 overall and 0-2 in the ACC for the first time since joining the league in 1992. Even more gnawing to fans, FSU is 4-6 in its last 10 games against Division I-A competition.

It doesn't get any easier for the Seminoles, who are at home Saturday against 22nd-ranked Georgia Tech (4-1), a 42-31 winner over Mississippi State on Saturday. FSU has already dropped home games to Miami and to USF two weeks ago.

"We get beat here, we get beat there. ... It's just a matter ... you can't give up. You simply can't give up. I refuse to."
--Bobby Bowden Bowden, normally folksy charming and dadgum positive, was more feisty Sunday with media that quizzed him on the Seminoles' slumbering start.

"Fifty percent of the teams in the country last week got beat -- 50 percent of them," Bowden said.

"They are all asking the same questions. This is part of football; you win some, you lose some. You had a tied ballgame in the fourth quarter and we had a chance to win it. We miss a field goal that would have put us ahead, we had an intercepted pass in our chest that we dropped, so we don't score and they take it and do score. It's not the first time I've been through this."

In an oft-repeated theme the past few years, Bowden further explained he believed the Seminoles have the coaches and players to ensure the program's success.

FSU fell a completion away in the end zone on the game's final play to beat the Hurricanes in their season opener, they failed to score any points on three possessions inside South Florida's 10-yard line and also stumbled on four tries at the 1-yard line against the Eagles Saturday.

"I think there's enough quality on this football team and enough brains on this staff to eventually get this thing together," said Bowden, whose 384 wins are three fewer than Penn State's Joe Paterno, the career leader in victories among major college coaches. "We get beat here, we get beat there, we lose that, we lose this here. It's just a matter ... you can't give up. You simply can't give up.

"I refuse to."

Two Florida newspapers, including the hometown Tallahassee Democrat, called for Bowden, who turns 80 in November, to call it a career at season's end. Bowden has an option year to return in 2010, and offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher, designated the head-coach-in-waiting, will be paid a bonus of $5 million if he doesn't take over in 2011.

Bowden also believes his players are prepared to handle any criticism directed at the program.

"If they are going to listen to talk shows, they are going to listen to the radio and TV and read the papers I can't guess you can keep it away from them," Bowden said of the surging negativity. "But I think they are smart enough to know that we are the ones that will determine what we do and what kind of progress we are going to make and not watch what speculation is.

"I imagine most of them have been through this very same thing in high school. Had the same criticism in high school, they get into college, it will go throughout their career. It doesn't change for us like it doesn't change for any of the other people that went through the same thing we did (Saturday). I saw some teams (Saturday) get beat that I didn't think they could possibly lose but they did. We are all going through the same thing, it's part of it.

"I think Oklahoma has even lost two games; I don't guess they are going to drop their program. But we all go through this. We expected better. We expected to win that game (Saturday)."

The Hurricanes, meanwhile, are all grins after knocking off visiting Oklahoma.

UM vaulted six spots to No. 11 in the polls, while the Sooners, who are hoping to get back Heisman Trophy winner Sam Bradford (shoulder) for Saturday's Big-12 opener against Baylor, had the biggest drop among teams still ranked. While they tumbled from No. 8 to No. 19, they are also the first team to be ranked with a 2-2 record since 2003.

"The game was big for us," UM head coach Randy Shannon said Sunday.

"We found out that we still have some things that we have to get done, but as far as record-wise after the first four games, we achieved a lot of goals people didn't expect us to. We came so far."

While the Hurricanes should be able to catch their breath against visiting Florida A&M, the Gators face their most difficult test of the season when they travel to No. 4 LSU. It remains unclear when Tebow, who suffered a concussion at Kentucky on Sept. 26, will return to practice.