By Ted Lewis for the Allstate Sugar Bowl
[This story originally appeared in the Official Game Program for the 2022 Allstate Sugar Bowl.]
Bobby Bowden was a legendary figure at Florida State and in college football – and most definitely, the Hall of Fame coach was a legend of the Sugar Bowl.
Bowden’s Seminoles came to the Sugar Bowl six times between 1989 and 2003, winning four of them, including a victory against Virginia Tech for the 1999 BCS championship. His 377 career victories are second only to Penn State’s Joe Paterno, another coach who won a national title in the Sugar Bowl.
“Bobby had a great relationship with the Sugar Bowl, and he always enjoyed bringing his teams here,” said longtime Sugar Bowl Committee member Vernon Brinson. “Of course, Bobby loved just about wherever he was and who he was around. I never saw him without a smile. Bobby Bowden was the consummate people person.”
Brinson should know.
Years before he came to New Orleans and became one of the city’s most-successful businessmen, Brinson played on the South George Junior College football and baseball teams, both coached by Bowden who was just beginning his coaching career.
It was the start of a relationship that lasted until Bowden’s death last August at age 91.
Not surprisingly, on those six Sugar Bowl visits made by Bowden and Florida State, Brinson, a Sugar Bowl member since 1974, was his old coach’s official host.
“Bobby loved history, so we had to see the World War II Museum after it opened,” Brinson said. “And he loved to eat, so we always made it to Commander’s Palace.”
Of course, there were plenty of football memories made by those visits as well.
Jan. 1, 1989 – Florida State 13, Auburn 7
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| Deion Sanders |
It wasn’t just the challenge of going against No. 7 Auburn’s nation-best defense that made Florida State’s first Sugar Bowl special.
For the fourth-ranked Seminoles, it was also an opportunity to go against an SEC opponent other than arch-rival Florida.
The Seminoles had been good in Bowden’s first decade at the school, but the 1989 Sugar Bowl season marked the team’s second in a remarkable run of 14 straight top-four finishes. What enabled FSU to make the leap to powerhouse was the recruiting of blue-chippers like Deion Sanders, Odell Haggins, Sammie Smith and LeRoy Butler, all seniors on that 1988 team.
“Those guys made a pact to take us to the next level,” said Mickey Andrews, who spent 26 seasons (1984-2009) as Bowden’s defensive coordinator. “And they set the example that younger guys would follow. That’s how you build dynasties.”
Bowden’s leadership – stressing the team as family and having the players feel a deep sense of ownership in the team did the rest.
Andrews, who had played for Bear Bryant at Alabama, would say, “Coach Bryant taught me how to win; Bobby Bowden taught me how to care.”
In 1988, Florida State couldn’t overcome a season-opening 31-0 loss to Miami to get back into the national title picture, but the Seminoles had played only one game closer than 18 points afterward.
The Auburn game figured to be much closer – and it was.
An 83-yard touchdown drive on its opening possession staked FSU to an early lead and the Seminoles added two field goals to go up 13-0 before the Tigers got a touchdown just before halftime.
That was all of the scoring in the game. But in the closing seconds Auburn reached the ‘Noles 22. It was from there that Sanders got in front of Lawyer Tillman for an end zone interception that saved the day.
“If they score there, they win the game,” Andrews said. “But Deion made one of those plays only he could.”
Jan. 2, 1995 – Florida State 23, Florida 17
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| Warrick Dunn |
After an improbable 31-31 tie in their regular-season finale, in which Florida State overcame a 31-3 deficit, the Seminoles and the Gators wound up in “The Fifth Quarter in the French Quarter” – a rematch in the Sugar Bowl.
“We really didn’t want to play them again,” said Warrick Dunn, then a sophomore running back at FSU. “They’re our biggest rival and we put so much emotion and effort in outplaying them in the second half that Coach Bowden took the tie at the end instead of going for two points because he didn’t want us to possibly lose.”
The emotion didn’t run out for the Seminoles, however, especially Dunn. In the second quarter, the lightly-recruited Baton Rouge product threw the first pass of his college career and wound up with a Sugar Bowl-record 73-yard TD completion to O’Mar Elllison.
“We wanted to show them something a little different,” Dunn said. “I had a lot of pressure coming at me, so I just kind of threw the ball up and hoped my guy would catch it, which he did and took it the end zone.”
The record lasted for only eight minutes before Florida’s Danny Wuerffel had an 83-yarder to Ike Hilliard.
But Dunn’s pass came first and the Seminoles won, helping Dunn earn the Miller-Digby Trophy as the game’s MVP.
“Coach Bowden saw something in me that no one else saw,” Dunn, who spent 13 years in the NFL and whose charitable efforts have merited widespread acclaim, said at Bowden’s funeral. “He believed in me, and that’s a powerful thing for an 18-year-old who’s just trying to figure out life. Coach was the kind of man who used faith and wisdom to shape boys into men.”
Jan. 2, 1997 – Florida 52, Florida State 20
Two years later, the Seminoles and the Gators were in another rematch. Only this time the national championship was on the line.
FSU had beaten Florida, 24-21, in their first meeting. The Seminoles punished Wuerffel, sacking him seven times, hitting him another 21 and forcing three interceptions.
In response, Florida coach Steve Spurrier revamped his offense, putting Wuerffel in the shotgun for the Gators’ 45-30 SEC Championship victory against Alabama.
The SEC Championship success continued in the Sugar Bowl as Wuerffel threw for 303 yards and three TDs earning the Gators their first national title and denying the Seminoles an unbeaten championship season.
Who knows how it would have worked out had Wuerffel, a native of Fort Walton Beach, wound up a Seminole?
“They were my top choice for much of my recruiting process,” said Wuerffel, who won the Heisman Trophy in his Sugar Bowl season. “One of the reasons was because of my respect for Bobby Bowden, both as a coach and as a man of character. He made the world a better place.”
Jan. 1, 1998 – Florida State 31, Ohio State 14
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| E.G. Green |
A year after the loss to Florida, FSU was back in the Sugar Bowl. And although the fourth-ranked Seminoles weren’t in title contention, they were facing exactly the kind of opponent Bowden teams relished playing, especially dating back to their days as an independent.
“We’d play anybody anywhere, and we won a lot more than we lost,” said Chuck Amato, who spent 14 years as Bowden’s assistant head coach. “We had great respect for a program like Ohio State, and so our kids were really fired up to play them.
“It’s like Coach Bowden said, ‘We’ve been good for a few years. They’ve been good forever.’”
In the bowl game, the Seminoles used their superior speed – a trait Bowden always recruited for – to dominate the line of scrimmage on defense and get backs and receivers open on offense.
The ‘Noles held the Buckeyes to 207 yards while E.G. Green with seven receptions for 176 yards and a touchdown was the Miller-Digby winner.
Jan. 4, 2000 – Florida State 46, Virginia Tech 29
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| Bobby Bowden celebrates the national championship. |
If any coach ever built a program from obscurity to national prominence like Bobby Bowden, it was Virginia Tech’s Frank Beamer, whose teams won 280 games in his 29 seasons in Blacksburg and appeared in the Sugar Bowl four times.
“Bobby had great teams,” Beamer said. “And he gave his program an identity the way we tried to do it.
“Not many coaches get a chance at longevity at one place like he and I did. It’s a very special thing.”
When the top-ranked Seminoles and the second-ranked Hokies met in the Superdome in the second BCS championship game, the building was electric – as was the play on the field. The final score didn’t reflect the excitement of that night.
Behind freshman quarterback Michael Vick, Tech fought back from the 28-7 first-half deficit to take a 29-28 lead going into the fourth quarter. But the Seminoles reasserted themselves in that final period, sealing the victory on Chris Weinke’s 43-yard touchdown pass to Peter Warrick. FSU’s Warrick, who also had a 64-yard TD reception and 59-yard punt return in the first half, was the game’s MVP.
The Seminoles finished 12-0, making them Bowden’s only undefeated team.
“I regret that we never got another shot at the national championship,” Beamer said. “But you could never get upset about losing to a Bobby Bowden team.
Jan. 1, 2003 – Georgia 26, Florida State 13
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| Bobby Bowden and Mark Richt prior to the 2003 Sugar Bowl. |
Bobby Bowden and Mark Richt prior to the 2003 Sugar Bowl.
Mark Richt knew it was inevitable that his Georgia Bulldogs would eventually meet up with Florida State and Bobby Bowden, under whom he served 14 years as offensive coordinator.
But he still felt awkward going against the man of whom he said, “…taught me all I know about football.”
“I loved Coach Bowden, and everybody knew it.”
The game looked like a mismatch. Not only had FSU lost four games, the ‘Noles were down to their third-team quarterback. However, Bowden’s squad took an early 7-3 lead. But then Georgia’s superior defense, running game and special teams took over.
“I’m happy for Mark,” Bowden said. “But that doesn’t overcome my sadness for me.”
The relationship between Richt and Bowden was so strong that in the summer of 2021, shortly before Bowden was diagnosed with the pancreatic cancer that finally claimed his life, Bowden made his last personal appearance, surprising Richt at a ceremony for his work in foreign missions for the Southern Baptist Convention.
“It meant so much that he was there,” Richt said. “Coach Bowden was a person who motivated through compassion and love instead of intimidation and fear like so many coaches do.
“With Bobby Bowden, what you saw was what you got. I was so blessed to know him.”
