Winning Sets Bowden Apart From His Foes

Florida State Coach Bobby Bowden will be remembered far into the 21st century for a unique accomplishment:

In the most competitive era in college football history, he has been a consistent winner.

People say a lot of other things about Bowden, but winning is what sets him apart.

In the national polls, his teams are usually in the preseason top five, or at the very least top 10, and stay there throughout the season, winning a national title every now and then, as the Seminoles did Tuesday night.

After establishing a successful college football program, winning is easy, you say, because, among other things, every alumnus wants to recruit for a success story--but look at all the other celebrated coaches who can’t keep up.

In Florida, you say, it’s particularly easy to win because the Sunshine State raises the nation’s best high school players--but look at the other football factories down there that can’t keep up, Florida and Miami for two.

The thing that originally made Bowden a winner was his interest in, and devotion to, passing the ball many decades ago, when most college coaches were still insisting that if a football is passed, only three things can happen, and two are bad.

Last week, a characteristic Bowden team was still throwing the ball to win another national title from an opponent whose best plays were quarterback runs, not passes.

There are many other values in college football, but winning is what gets everybody’s attention. And Bowden specializes in that.

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Super field: In pro football, this is being called the year of the NFC .500.

Some people seem upset to learn that two 8-8 teams made the playoffs.

But I’d say that the Dallas Cowboys and the league’s 11 other survivors gave the NFL a typically strong postseason field.

Although the Detroit Lions, for example, began the playoffs as an 8-8 team, they had defeated four of the six division champions: the St. Louis Rams, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Seattle Seahawks and Washington Redskins.

Does it not seem obvious that when good teams play one another repeatedly, good teams win and good teams lose?

Week after week, in any case, that’s precisely what happens in the NFL.

It’s true that wild-card teams and .500 teams generally have been unsuccessful in the playoffs, but rules force them to always play on the road against playoff teams with better records.

On a neutral field, the typical NFL playoff game this winter would be a tossup.

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The Tiki case: Even some of those who play in the NFL fail to realize that they’re playing on good teams that can’t all win.

The athletes keep reading and hearing that parity makes this a mediocre league, and after a while, apparently, they start to believe it.

A day or two before last Sunday’s game at Dallas, New York Giant running back Tiki Barber said, “An 8-8 team in the playoffs? What kind of [garbage] is that? We don’t deserve it.”

Barber caught 13 passes for 100 yards against Dallas, a playoff team.

Barber’s team beat Dallas last time, but it lost this time, for basically one reason: That’s the NFL today.

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Next year’s champions: In pro football, a .500 team is one that needs only a couple of players to win the division title the next season.

This, for example, was a season in which the Rams got a new quarterback and a new running back, Kurt Warner and Marshall Faulk, and went from the bottom to the top.

So it’s conceivable that the thousands who saw the Oakland Raiders eliminate the Kansas City Chiefs in overtime last week, 41-38, were watching next year’s champions.

Although neither club needs improved passing or running, the addition of a couple of impact players in other positions could make a championship difference in either Oakland or Kansas City.

Or in a dozen other NFL cities.

The NFL isn’t like baseball, where a championship can be bought.

It isn’t even like the NFL used to be.

With competent coaching now, every team is a potential Super Bowl team.

A perception that they’re all mediocre has been fueled by one reality: Every play can’t be a big play.

There are loads of big plays, though, and that’s what makes the NFL what it is.

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Parity makes it great: Last Sunday’s Oakland-Kansas City game was a good example of one involving teams perceived to be mediocre because, over a long season, they lose about as often as they win.

Neither the Chiefs nor the Raiders made the playoffs, but each side scored five touchdowns and each led three times during the regulation four quarters, and each made big plays to come from behind.

There were long, accurate passes by Elvis Grbac of 9-7 Kansas City and Rich Gannon of 8-8 Oakland.

There were magnificent receptions by Oakland’s Tim Brown and Rickey Dudley, as well as by Kansas City’s Tony Gonzales and Joe Horn.

There were fast, punishing runs by Oakland’s Tyrone Wheatley and Napoleon Kaufman, as well as by Kansas City’s Donnell Bennett and Tony Richardson.

There was even an 84-yard punt return by a wide receiver, Tamarick Vanover, as Kansas City jumped out to 17-0 lead in the first 7 1/2 minutes.

In the NFL of not long ago, that 17-0 would have stood up.

Not today. For football fans today, parity makes it interesting.

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Third-down beatings: Hardly the least of the NFL’s great players are the two old quarterbacks, Dan Marino of the Miami Dolphins and Troy Aikman of the Cowboys, who are both back in the playoffs.

Marino has the better chance to succeed, mostly because Seattle’s running attack has been crippled by Ricky Watters’ knee injury, and Seattle’s quarterback, Jon Kitna, is inexperienced.

For two other reasons, however, both Marino and Aikman will have trouble surviving the first round:

* Both will be visitors--Marino at Seattle and Aikman at Minnesota--and with the home team’s fans noisily disrupting the visitors, it’s hard for a traveling club to win.

* Aikman and Marino both play for conservative coaches, Chan Gailey of Dallas and Jimmy Johnson of Miami, who usually run on first down.

So, their aging quarterbacks have been taking beatings from third-down blitzers.

Neither Aikman nor Marino is jumpier on third down than other NFL quarterbacks--none of whom likes to throw on third and long--but as older passers, Marino and Aikman have taken more third-down beatings than their young rivals.

It is the cumulative impact of years of third-down hits that make Aikman and Marino the imprecise athletes they now sometimes seem to be.

The question of the day could be this: After years of relentless conservatism, will either Miami’s coach or Dallas’ coach turn aggressive enough to win?

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Why Jaguars figure: If offensive coaching made the big difference in separating playoff teams from the others, it wasn’t the only thing.

Injury luck again determined some of this season’s results, knocking out, among others, two great coaches, Mike Shanahan of the Denver Broncos and Bill Parcells of the New York Jets.

For other reasons, such promising new coaches as Brian Billick of the Baltimore Ravens and Dick Jauron of the Chicago Bears also missed the playoffs.

Football remains a coach’s game.

So, the Jacksonville Jaguars remain the Super Bowl favorites.

The perception is that Jaguar Coach Tom Coughlin has done a better job than most opponents as an organizer and developer of his many good players.

Perhaps the only question is whether Coughlin’s native conservatism will get in his way this month.

He has the talent.

Will that be sufficient?