Bobby Bowden Officially Announces Gator Bowl Will Be His Last Game At FSU

After some hemming and hawing, Bobby Bowden has made it officially official: the Gator Bowl will be his last game as Florida State's head coach.

Here is part of the official announcement, via SBN's Tomahawk Nation, which has been all over this story:

"The bowl game will be my last game as head football coach at Florida State," said Bowden.  "It's been a great 34 seasons.

"I'd like to thank my wife Ann and my family for their love and support.  There were a lot of nights when I was on the road and not at home at the dinner table.  We all know that's part of it.  

"I'd also like to thank the coaches and their families who helped build the program into something that is special.  You can't have a successful program without players and we have been blessed to have young men who are winners both on and off the field.  I want to thank them and their families for committing 4-5 years of their lives to me and to FSU.

"Finally, I'd like to thank the University and FSU fans who have supported the Florida State program.  We've got one more game and I look forward to enjoying these next few weeks as the head football coach."

According to Corey Clark of the Tallahassee Democrat, Bowden will stay on in a fundraising role at Florida State. It’s a sound move considering Bowden’s snake-charming ways with boosters and his considerable fundraising powers, and also allows them to say they didn’t fire him. Drinks all around! Unless it’s not true, and we have to go back and rewrite all of this when Bowden hits the podium and announces he’s returning to coach another five years!

All right, so after Monday’s “emotional” meeting with Seminole brass, Bobby Bowden will apparently meet with University officials again tomorrow, because twelve extra hours of thinking is sure to change the mind of everyone involved, entirely:

Speaking at his home Monday evening, Bowden tells The Associated Press that he is still sifting through “options presented to him.” Bowden met with Florida State President T.K. Wetherell and athletic director Randy Spetman for an hour Monday morning.

Those options being, “You can be trotted out for fundraisers or you can trot off to a cruise ship.” Whatever his role from here on out with the team, Bowden is done coaching, and everything between now and the official statement is just posturing on somebody’s part. (Although it does lend entertaining credence to the message-board conspiracy theorists claiming that Bowden’s wife, Ann, a vocal critic of the university, is the one pulling the strings and Lady Macbeth-ing this thing into an uproar.)