Clemson Prepares For Florida State

Oct. 29, 2000

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Bowden vs. Bowden

When Florida State’s Bobby Bowden and Clemson’s Tommy Bowden take the field Saturday night to coach their respective teams, it will be the second competition of father and son in NCAA Division I history. Obviously, the first meeting of the Bowdens took place last year at Death Valley.

That was quite a night as 86,092 fans looked on, the largest crowd in the 59-year history of Death Valley. Bobby Bowden gained his his 300th career victory in that contest against his son. Playing Clemson has seen other landmark accomplishments for Bobby Bowden. When he beat Clemson in Death Valley in 1997, it was his 200th win at Florida State.

Ironically, Bobby Bowden is 5-0 against Clemson in Death Valley, the only coach with a perfect record against Clemson in the facility (given a minimum of three games). But, Bowden has lost to Clemson twice in Tallahassee, 15-12 in 1976, and 34-23 in 1989.

Tommy Bowden will attempt to prevent just the second two-game losing streak of his head coaching career with a victory over his father. Tommy Bowden enters this game after a 31-28 loss to Georgia Tech. In his career as a head coach Tommy Bowden is 8-1 the week after a loss.

Like Father Like Son?

Florida State’s record the two years prior to Bobby Bowden’sarrival was 4-18. Tulane’s record the two years prior to TommyBowden’s arrival was 4-18. Bobby Bowden had Florida State in a bowlgame, accumulated a double digit victory total, and a top 15national ranking in his second year with the Seminoles. TommyBowden had Tulane in a bowl game, accumulated a double digitvictory total and a top 10 national ranking by his second seasonwith the program. Tommy Bowden has a chance to do the same thing inhis second year at Clemson. Father and son both had perfect regularseason records in the 1990s. Bobby Bowden’s Florida State Seminoleswere 11-0 in the 1996 and 1999 regular seasons, while TommyBowden’s Tulane team was 11-0 in 1998. Brother Terry Bowden was11-0 as head coach at Auburn in 1993. Both Coaches won at leasttwo-thirds of their games after their first two years as a DivisionI Head Coach. Bobby Bowden was 15-7 after two years at WestVirginia and Tommy Bowden is 18-4 after two years as a Division Ihead coach. Bobby Bowden has won 78 percent of his games as aDivision I head coach (312-85-4). Tommy Bowden has won 74.4 percentof his games as a Division I head coach (32-11). Both Bowdensexperienced just one conference loss between 1997-98. Tommy Bowdencoached under his father as a graduate assistant at Florida Statein 1978-79. Bowden also played for his father at West Virginiabetween 1973-75. This year both teams enter this game with 8-1records. Florida State has done it by averaging 43.3 points a gameand Clemson has a 41.4 points per outing figure. EnteringSaturday’s game Clemson and Florida State are the top two teams inthe ACC in scoring offense, scoring defense, rushing offense,rushing defense, total offense, total defense, passing efficiencyoffense, total first downs, pass efficiency defense and third downconversion defense. That is a total of 10 different categorieswhere they rank in the top two in the league. That does not includethe obvious, they are also 1-2 in the conference standings and interms of the best overall record.