At the onset of the 1980s, Bobby Bowden was one of the hottest young coaches in the country. At every head coaching stop — Birmingham's Howard College (now Samford), West Virginia and Florida State — he had transformed moribund programs into winners. The rest of college football had taken notice.
According to Bowden, he took the Florida State job in 1976 with the intention of moving on to a better program after a few seasons. There wasn't a lot of reason to expect the Seminoles would become a college football powerhouse under his watch. There were exactly four wins over the three season prior to Bowden's arrival in Tallahasse.