Search Committee talking to Terry Bowden

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It should have taken him about 15 minutes to clean up the mess in the program. Fire the perps. Suspend the players. Call the NCAA. Wait for counsel to clean up the mess and complete the investigation. He suggested to continue to pay the players for the final year. How does that clear his name?

Nope. He can't be the finalist.
 

Oneoldgopher said:
It should have taken him about 15 minutes to clean up the mess in the program. Fire the perps. Suspend the players. Call the NCAA. Wait for counsel to clean up the mess and complete the investigation. He suggested to continue to pay the players for the final year. How does that clear his name?

Nope. He can't be the finalist.
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Have you ever watched or followed a Division 1 football program outside of the Gophers? My guess is no...
 

Sparlimb said:
I agree that I'd rather have Leach. Or even Tommy Bowden, who I think did a better job at Clemson, although not good enough to stick there. I'd still prefer tio interview coaches that have run a BCS team over coordinators and small conference HC's.
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Terry Bowden was SEC Coach Of the Year.
 

I think this could be a good fit & fall into the "Tubby like" category Maturi mentioned. Like Tubby the guy's been a winner everywhere he's gone. Like Tubby he's won an SEC Championship. Like getting Tubby, this would be a story of National interest & get people talking about us in a positive light. Like Tubby, he's had enough of the SEC (I presume). Like Tubby (hopefully) he'd like the opportunity to coach long term at a major university where the admin, boosters, fans are more reasonable.
 

Costa Rican Gopher said:
I think this could...fall into the "Tubby like" category Maturi mentioned.
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Hahahahahaha. Good one.

Costa Rican Gopher said:
Like Tubby he's won an SEC Championship.
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No, he hasn't.

Costa Rican Gopher said:
Like getting Tubby, this would...get people talking about us in a positive light.
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No, it wouldn't.

Costa Rican Gopher said:
Like Tubby, he's had enough of the SEC (I presume).
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Yeah, he's "had enough" of the SEC, when he was fired 12 years ago. Just like Ron Zook's "had enough" of the SEC. Or Mike Shula's "had enough" of the SEC. Or Sylvester Croom's "had enough" of the SEC.

Costa Rican Gopher said:
Like Tubby (hopefully) he'd like the opportunity to coach long term at a major university where the admin, boosters, fans are more reasonable.
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Of course he would. Who do you know that would rather be coaching North Alabama than Minnesota?
 


IMO this would be a terrible hire. After living in the south for 10 years and listening to fans and the media poke fun and belittle him I didn't get the feeling he was much like his Daddy in the coaching sense. If he was such a home run, why was he not more of a hot commodity (with the exception of maybe yahoo sports and division II football teams)? Good coaches are sought out, they do not sit idle for almost a decade.
 


It would be cool to see bobby bowden maybe walking around at a few games. Mayeb it's too far north for him
 

I stand corrected, technically after going 11-0 he did not win the SEC because they were ineligible due to NCAA sanctions from the previous coaches reign & they ended up losing the SEC Champ game in 96'. You stand corrected because Bowden was not fired. I'll stand by the rest of those comments & encourage you to formulate an actual rebuttal beyond "lol"s.

Terry Bowden built programs from the ground up and/or made instant turnarounds in his stops prior to Auburn, then he won at Auburn with Pat Dye's players & was National Coach of the Year, then he won at Auburn with his own players despite the NCAA sanctions working against him...other than Phil Fulmer who actually has an NC to his name, who are we looking at with Bowden's credentials? This is a Tubby Smith style resume, imo.

The Bowden's are college football royalty & TV loves to cover them. That's why we'd get a lot of good ink out of it. ABC loves Terry Bowden, any sports show lucky enough to get him on, loves Bobby Bowden. Terry was exonerated of all charges. Why wouldn't this story get us some nice coverage?

Probably the most obvious thing you're missing is Terry Bowden wasn't fired for lack of performance, it was politics. In fact the year prior to his resignation Auburn was 10-3 & there were rumors of frustration that Bowden was doing so well, because they couldn't fire him after a 10 win season. He was losing in his final season when he resigned though, but all coaches have a losing season eventually, especially saddled with NCAA sanctions.

As for him wanting back in the big time, he's stated that no big time program was going to hire a guy who was out of coaching for so long. After the Auburn job, he was under NCAA investigation so he couldn't coach, not that he couldn't get a job. That's why he got the ABC gig (again, people like the Bowdens), the Yahoo gig, the Radio gig. motivational speaker gig, etc. After being exonerated he threw his hat in the ring for his alma mater job at WVU & didn't get it. He went back in the booth for another year & finally chose to get back into coaching at N. Alabama, the local D2 powerhouse (He's an Alabama native, so this was a no-brainer.). He's 17-3 at N. Alabama in his two seasons btw & ready to move back into the big time. Why not us, why not now?
 



So we are not getting Jimmy Johnson?
 

The more I read about Terry Bowden, the higher up my list he goes. It seems he made a bad decision which was a compromise to end the pay for play for new players, but pay the current players to more or less keep them quiet. It's easy to see how a guy could be pressured into making that decision for the good of the school, team, players and all that. I've known people that have made a poor choice, learned from it, and strengthened their character because of it. I don't know if Terry Bowden is one of those, and I would think that question would be addressed during the vetting and interview process.
 

GopherHoleDigger said:
IMO this would be a terrible hire. After living in the south for 10 years and listening to fans and the media poke fun and belittle him I didn't get the feeling he was much like his Daddy in the coaching sense. If he was such a home run, why was he not more of a hot commodity (with the exception of maybe yahoo sports and division II football teams)? Good coaches are sought out, they do not sit idle for almost a decade.
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Not sure what part of the south you lived in, but where I come from, right in the middle of SEC country, Terry Bowden is held in high regard as a coach. He would not be my first choice if I had my pick of any candidate, but we could do a lot worse. He certainly has the contacts to put together a good staff and would know how to "coach em up." Whether he would be any good at recruiting, having been out of the major college coaching ranks for so long, is an open question in my mind. But don't discount the idea that Bobby might not help out and Bobby still was pulling in fairly good classes of recruits right up until the end. All in all I have mixed feelings about this potential hire, but not because he is a bad coach.

Also, why is everyone assuming that the alleged interview transcript is real? Do y'all think we are so dumb down here that we just invite people into our homes and start confessing about all manner of things? Don't forget that unlike his predecessor and perhaps some of the current administration at AU, the NCAA cleared Terry.
 

My main concern with Terry Bowden is whether he would be able to bring competent Coordinators and assistants with him. He has been out of D1 football for a number of years. The game may have passed him by somewhat. The family connections would be a plus. The Bowden family is very close-knit. I suspect "daddy" might be a frequent visitor.
 



Swagger Wagon said:
Have you ever watched or followed a Division 1 football program outside of the Gophers? My guess is no...
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You must like the basis of your moniker, because if you were sober, you would know how grown ups act.
 

At one time Terry Bowden was a heck of a football coach, and he might still be. He's got his current team continuing to play at a very high level, but for me there are just a ton of questions surrounding the guy, and many of those are about his self-imposed exile from the game, and what's happened in the afterwards. I mean he took an extremely long hiatus, an eternity in coaching years as he became a full time media guy with the studio analyst/commentator gig at CBS, his column for Yahoo Sports, his radio shows with Sirius and Westwood One, and with all that on his plate and him seeming happy within that role of media maven, I was assuming he was done as a coach.

And then all of a sudden he wants back, and in his two attempts to break back into big time college football he's rebuffed, most painfully and publicly for him by West Virginia. Bowden is a West Virginia grad, and when Rich Rodriguez left for Michigan, Bowden made a public statement in which he declared that the head coaching job at WVU would be his dream job, but they bypassed him in favor of hiring their interim coach, Bill Stewart. And then he interviewed for the Georgia Tech, but ultimately lost out to Paul Johnson. And then it seems like he almost got relegated down to coaching in the minor leagues of college football at North Alabama, and as mentioned he does have them playing at a high level, but then again he took over a strong team at North Alabama from Mark Hudspeth and they're a team that's been historically strong within their milieu.

So I don't know what the deal is with Terry Bowden. I don't know why he left coaching initially (was it burnout, or did he feel still tainted by the scent of scandal, or....?), and I don't know why he's been unable to secure a job (do West Virginia and Georgia Tech know something we don't?) at an FBS school since wanting to return to coaching.
 

Seany said:
At one time Terry Bowden was a heck of a football coach, and he might still be. He's got his current team continuing to play at a very high level, but for me there are just a ton of questions surrounding the guy, and many of those are about his self-imposed exile from the game, and what's happened in the afterwards. I mean he took an extremely long hiatus, an eternity in coaching years as he became a full time media guy with the studio analyst/commentator gig at CBS, his column for Yahoo Sports, his radio shows with Sirius and Westwood One, and with all that on his plate and him seeming happy within that role of media maven, I was assuming he was done as a coach.

And then all of a sudden he wants back, and in his two attempts to break back into big time college football he's rebuffed, most painfully and publicly for him by West Virginia. Bowden is a West Virginia grad, and when Rich Rodriguez left for Michigan, Bowden made a public statement in which he declared that the head coaching job at WVU would be his dream job, but they bypassed him in favor of hiring their interim coach, Bill Stewart. And then he interviewed for the Georgia Tech, but ultimately lost out to Paul Johnson. And then it seems like he almost got relegated down to coaching in the minor leagues of college football at North Alabama, and as mentioned he does have them playing at a high level, but then again he took over a strong team at North Alabama from Mark Hudspeth and they're a team that's been historically strong within their milieu.

So I don't know what the deal is with Terry Bowden. I don't know why he left coaching initially (was it burnout, or did he feel still tainted by the scent of scandal, or....?), and I don't know why he's been unable to secure a job (do West Virginia and Georgia Tech know something we don't?) at an FBS school since wanting to return to coaching.
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At least he's hungry to get back into coaching, that's one positive.
 

The situation at Auburn where he couldn't trust his boss, and he couldn't trust his staff, would wear on anyone. Part of his hiatus from football was to spite Auburn because any earnings from football would offset some of his buyout. To avoid paying back part of his buyout he stayed out of football. Another part was the NCAA investigation, that ultimately exonerated him, was active during part of it. He also had a messy divorce at about the same time which would have prevented him from concentrating on football. Like any job seeker that's been out of the job market for a while potential employers can were very wary. In the end he settled for a lower position to show stability and is now ready to move up if the proper opportunity comes along.
A Mia Culpa the divorce headlines at the time refereed to the Auburn/Bowden split substitute affair allegations you get the same result. He did get divorced this summer.
 

Oneoldgopher said:
You must like the basis of your moniker, because if you were sober, you would know how grown ups act.
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My question was legitimate and did not resort to name calling, questioning one's sobriety or mental faculties. I just think you are uninformed as to how big time college football works outside of Dinkytown.

Oneoldgopher said:
It should have taken him about 15 minutes to clean up the mess in the program. Fire the perps. Suspend the players. Call the NCAA. Wait for counsel to clean up the mess and complete the investigation. He suggested to continue to pay the players for the final year. How does that clear his name?

Nope. He can't be the finalist.
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The mastermind behind the whole ordeal is a very powerful Auburn booster. The football coach doesn't fire a guy like that, in fact it is the other way around. This is the same booster who had Tommy Tuberville canned for one subpar season, just like he had Terry Bowden canned. The booster who drew enough suspicion from the feds that he was under investigation and shed light on the current Cam Newton fiasco at Auburn.

You think Terry Bowden liked the situation he was in? If he calls the NCAA and Auburn was hit hard with penalties (I'd bet the death penalty was on the table) no boosters would want their team to hire Bowden so he'd be stuck at Auburn. But he wanted to run a cleaner program than what he had at the time. I'm sure he sought counsel from Daddy and they came up with the best solution they could think of.
 

My main concern, other than the evident drama which as a MN sports fan am really getting sick of (whether deserved or not), is the comment concerning Mason which I mentioned earlier. It strongly suggests if he was to take the MN job, it would only be as a step up to something else. The Gophers need a coach who views the opportunity at MN as better then a stepping stone.
 

Swagger Wagon said:
My question was legitimate and did not resort to name calling, questioning one's sobriety or mental faculties. I just think you are uninformed as to how big time college football works outside of Dinkytown.



The mastermind behind the whole ordeal is a very powerful Auburn booster. The football coach doesn't fire a guy like that, in fact it is the other way around. This is the same booster who had Tommy Tuberville canned for one subpar season, just like he had Terry Bowden canned. The booster who drew enough suspicion from the feds that he was under investigation and shed light on the current Cam Newton fiasco at Auburn.

You think Terry Bowden liked the situation he was in? If he calls the NCAA and Auburn was hit hard with penalties (I'd bet the death penalty was on the table) no boosters would want their team to hire Bowden so he'd be stuck at Auburn. But he wanted to run a cleaner program than what he had at the time. I'm sure he sought counsel from Daddy and they came up with the best solution they could think of.
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I feel compelled to respond, because your foolishness just begs for corrective training.

First, I am not anywhere near Dinkytown. I have worked with issues of compliance at J&J and I think I could navigate the NCAA realm with ease. So, I have perspective where fines can run upward of $500,000,000, not the little league fines that the NCAA can dish. Maintaining ethical and legal compliance was just one of my responsiblities.

Second, facing the issue directly saves on scholarships and harsher penalties. Running and hiding cost him more. He gets no great boost up for "continuing to pay". That means he was just as corrupt as the complaints against him. The University wants to keep this kind of ethics violation out of the athletics department for competitive reasons. The same reason Auburn stated it termed him for. I would think he was termed for continuing the ethics violation after he became away of the situation and not reporting. His exoneration is a bit cloudy since he even admitted allowing the booster to continue to pay players for that last year even after he became aware of the issue. What could possibly justify that! That was cause in itself for Auburn to terminate him when he discovered ethics violations under his control. At that point a few phone calls would have put him in touch with Auburn's counsel and compliance office and they would have stomped all over the "donor" and the "players" for these illegal payments. They were illegal as they were not reported for federal and state tax purposes or counted against school scholarship money as reported to the Department of Education. Hate to have them pull back aid to the institution because of falsified internal control records! OMG, I should put a seminar on issues of control and compliance!

So, in my little end of the world, your title fits you nicely. Have another beer and stay away from subjects you know nothing about. I would certainly hate for the U to fail to get financial aid funds just so we can hire a coach who has offered non scholarship money to students for a year because they received it in the past. Believe me when I say money is tight enough that small infractions can reduce the aid offered to the institution. Hiring Bowden is a suspicious act that fails the sniff test, raises external issues of institutional control and brings the spotlight to where it does not belong. The U does a great job of grabbing its share of federal dollars and I for one don't want to bring in the wrong element that suggests the U would consider false dealing in general. Compliance has a way of drifting away from jurisdiction when it comes to issues of control. Auditors can start raising questions when they suspect control is lacking and they don't need to be invited to start asking questions because of a highly visible hire. If you think federal auditors don't pay attention to football, you're crazier than I am. The U is a major federal contractor and we need to keep the whole institution looking good to keep this status in good standing. Squeeky clean. Play by the rules clean in all areas when the issue boils down to did he lose institutional control at Auburn. By his own account, he lost control. He failed to report the violation in a timely manner to Auburn's controller and counsel. His hire would be negligent on so many compliance fronts that it makes my head spin and smoke come out of my ears. An 11-0 season would be nothing in comparison to the potential loss of federal contract dollars and institutional financial aid sources. He has to be on an IRS list as a person of interest for audits. That alone scares me more than anything.
 


Oneoldgopher said:
It should have taken him about 15 minutes to clean up the mess in the program. Fire the perps. Suspend the players. Call the NCAA. Wait for counsel to clean up the mess and complete the investigation. He suggested to continue to pay the players for the final year. How does that clear his name?

Nope. He can't be the finalist.
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If he suggested to continue playing the players, then why did the NCAA clear him of any wrong doing?
 

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