The son steps into a pressure cooker

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Published: July 21, 2008

GREENSBORO, Ga. - When Clemson rewarded Tommy Bowden with a lucrative contract during the winter, expectations soared as high as his new salary. Bowden had flirted with an offer from Arkansas until Clemson opened its coffers.

Now, with the season opener against Alabama in Atlanta’s Georgia Dome right around the corner (Aug. 30), the pressure on Bowden to deliver an ACC title has grown substantially.

So when Bowden’s Tigers were the media’s overwhelming pick to win the league’s Atlantic Division on Monday, the natural line of questioning began. Clemson received 59 out of a possible 65 first-place votes to win its division and also predicted to beat projected Coastal Division favorite Virginia Tech in the ACC Championship game in Tampa in early December.

High expectations

“The statistics are what they are,” Bowden told sportswriters at the annual ACC Football Kickoff at Reynolds Plantation. “I’ve been the head coach here for 10 years and haven’t won a conference championship. Am I disappointed? Yes.”

But Bowden, whose team has displayed a penchant for either starting slowly and finishing strong, or starting strong and imploding at the end, isn’t quite sure on how to handle the favorite’s role. Last season, all the Tigers had to do in order to win the division and advance to the conference title game was to win a home game against a weakened Boston College team.

Clemson lost, 20-17.

“The bullseye has always been on someone else, now it’s on us,” Bowden said. “Based on last year, based on who we have coming back, and plus the media loves skill guys, I can see why we were picked as favored to win our division.”

The Tigers return 16 starters from last year’s 9-4 team that lost to Auburn — again, by a field goal — in the Chick-fil-A Bowl. They return a solid quarterback in Cullen Harper and speedy running backs James Davis and C.J. Spiller.

It starts up front

But Bowden is mostly concerned with his offensive line, which lost four starters. Anyone who knows football realizes that the offensive line is a critical component to having a quality football team.

Still, Bowden doesn’t view the No. 1 pick as a negative.

“Heck, I’ve coached at some places that haven’t been in position to win one,” the Tigers’ coach said. “But, until you win a championship and more, you have to answer that type of question. There’s not a book that you turn to and on page 13 it tells you about getting over the hump.”

If nothing else, the bullseye he referred to will motivate the competition, particularly Nick Saban’s Alabama team in the big opener.

“Everybody likes to take a shot at the top guy,” Bowden said.

While there may not be a book available on how to break through into the championship column, Bowden does have a pretty good source of knowledge about winning trophies at hand. His father, Bobby Bowden, is the all-time winningest coach in major college football.

Bobby, who was sitting one table over from his son during one of Monday’s interview sessions, knows a little bit about the subject. In fact, this year was only the third time since Bobby Bowden’s Florida State program joined the ACC in 1992 that the Seminoles were not selected as the preseason favorite to win the league.

That’s 14 out of 17 years, and one of those was last year, when FSU was picked to win its division, but not the championship game.

“I think what my father has done has been to prepare the same most every year,” Tommy Bowden said of his father’s overwhelming success. “As the Alabama game gets closer, I’m sure he can give me some things to say to my team about being the favorite. This is unchartered waters to me.”

Bobby Bowden’s team, by the way, was picked to finish third in the Atlantic Division, behind his son’s Tigers and behind Wake Forest.

“I think a lot of what we do depends on how the players respond to being picked No. 1,” Tommy Bowden said. “It’s a position Clemson is not used to being in.”

There could be added pressure in Tiger Town as well. Clemson fans aren’t known for their patience, and while Bowden has delivered wins over the past decade, it has been long time since there’s been a Tiger paw on the championship trophy.

Clemson hasn’t won an ACC football championship since 1991. Heck, Virginia has won a league crown since then.

“Every coach from Bo Schembechler to Mack Brown to my father eventually got over the hump and won a championship ... we just haven’t done it yet,” Bowden said.

Certainly it’s not for the lack of trying. Tommy Bowden picked Joe Paterno’s brain on a trip a couple of years ago, wondering if he had the right coaching staff under his wing at Clemson.

“Coach Paterno said that the biggest thing when looking at your staff is, ‘Do they have the potential to win a championship?’ and I believe I have one with the potential to do that,” Bowden said.

The eyes of South Carolina — at least half of them — are on Death Valley to see if Bowden can deliver upon the expectations.

“We’ll see if I can hold the wolves off until I can make a field goal,” Bowden chuckled.

Tiger fans won’t see the humor.