The High Court

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Bianchi’s Personal Foul

December 7, 2005

 

Florida State is back, baby!  Well, sort of.  An 8-4 record certainly won’t make Seminoles fans forget the good ol’ days when Bobby Bowden’s squad was a Top Five lock and a national title contender, but FSU’s trip to the Orange Bowl (and a showdown with Bowden’s fellow legend, Joe Paterno) should make Chief Osceola’s gang feel a little better about things.  But the ‘Noles ACC title game upset of Virginia Tech may have given the Orlando Sentinel’s Mike Bianchi a queasy feeling…at least that’s how I always feel before having a plate of crow…

 

And honestly, I may be stretching things a bit.  The twenty points the FSU offense put up against the Hokies stout defense probably didn’t impress Bianchi (or Florida State fans) enough to cause him to recant last week’s assertion that Bobby Bowden should toss his son and offensive coordinator, Jeff, under the Seminoles team bus.  Maybe it shouldn’t.  Like Bianchi and many of the unhappy denizens of ‘Nole Nation, I can see where FSU’s offense has been severely subpar at times in the last few years.  So maybe Jeff Bowden does need to go.  But not at the hands of the unprofessional, unfounded, and completely misrepresented column penned (typed) by Mike Bianchi.

 

Allow me to breakdown, point-by-point, Bianchi’s inappropriate references, ridiculous suggestions, and statements by other parties used out of context.  Bianchi begins his attack with reference to the Florida football program, comparing the Bowden family situation to Jeremy Foley’s hiring of Ron Zook in Gainesville.  Bianchi cleverly coins the phrase ‘Friend of Foley’ to tell us how Zook merited hiring as the Gator gridiron boss.  I am not a fan of either Foley or Zook, but if Bianchi wants to grind his axe on those two, then write the column…again.  Whatever.  But this column didn’t have to include an assassination of either of those guys.  If you have a problem with the Bowdens, then say so.  But keep it in the family.

 

Bianchi doesn’t allow the comparison to stop with the issue of hiring buddies/family, either.  He turns it into hiring buddies/family that are not experienced or qualified for the job.  He notes the fact that Zook had never been a head coach, and that Jeff Bowden’s only experience as a coordinator came under his brother Terry at the I-AA level.  I am always amused that when people with little experience fail, inexperience is always the reason.  But if they succeed, overcoming inexperience is never mentioned.  Charlie Weis had never been a head coach (save for the high school level) prior to his hiring at Notre Dame.  How’s that working out for the Irish so far?  And don’t tell me that Weis is different because he spent the last fifteen years working for Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick.  Jeff Bowden has spent his entire life in the Bowden family.  Surely Jeff picked up a few things from the man Bianchi refers to as the greatest coach in college football history (I think that one is open to debate, Mike).  I also find it more than a little funny that while Bianchi acknowledges Bobby Bowden’s greatness, he accuses him of being “…a bitter Little League father who cannot accept that is son just might not be good enough to be an all-star.”  Well, now that is clever, isn’t it?  But I wonder, who is better suited to judge a coach’s ability (even if it is his own son).  The greatest college football coach EVER (as anointed by Mike Bianchi) or Mike Bianchi, sportswriter?   You make the call…

 

To that point in the column though, Bianchi was as clean as he was going to get.  Where things really started to go dirty was Bianchi’s reference to a South Florida Sun-Sentinel report that FSU freshman Fred Rouse was seen talking (Bianchi used the word cozying up to) to Florida Coach Urban Meyer.  Bianchi also provided the following quote from Rouse: “I can’t believe that man recruited me as hard as he did, and I dissed him.  I regret it now.”  First of all, why in the world is Bianchi dragging Urban Meyer into this mess?  If Bianchi wants to use quotes out of context (more on that in a second), that is bad enough.  But to use Meyer’s moment with Rouse as a tool to suggest that the offensive difficulties were causing Florida State personnel to want to jump to the rival’s ship is absolutely unprofessional.  I can’t imagine Meyer was at all happy to find himself in that position.  As to the quote, it came from Rouse following a difficult defeat at the hands of a coach he clearly respects.  At the moment he made the statement, did Rouse wish he was on the same side as Urban Meyer?  Perhaps he did.  But he wears garnet and gold.  And that was his choice.  I wonder what he would have said on the subject after the Seminoles knocked off Virginia Tech?  A change of heart, perhaps?

But here’s the real reason Rouse’s quotes are inappropriate in Bianchi’s column.  Because he’s a tainted source (and not the worst one in the column, by the way).  Bianchi refers to the supremely talented freshman as one of Florida State’s ‘star’ freshman receivers.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  While the highly-touted hometown recruit was one of the nation’s finest high school seniors, Rouse has made little impact for the Seminoles.  Ten games played.  Five catches.  Eleven punt returns.  Six kickoff returns.  Twenty-two touches in all.  One touchdown.  Wow.  What a star.  So what we have here, folks is a quote from a freshman ‘star’ who may be more unhappy with his role in the team’s offense than the offense itself.  Yet there Bianchi goes, quoting an immature youngster out of context to make his point that Jeff Bowden is unfit to hold his job.  But as I mentioned earlier, that’s just his warm-up.

A little later in the column, we get an appearance from, drum roll, please…Chris Rix…Senior.  That’s right.  In an opinion column, we get a quote from the bitter father of the former Florida State whipping boy.  As a father, I absolutely understand Chris Rix, Sr.’s unhappiness with the Florida State football program.  But I must say that much of his anger is misdirected.  The sources of most of the scorn directed at his son were the media and the Seminoles fan base, not the FSU coaching staff.  Now Rix the elder wants to jump on the anti-Bowden bandwagon driven by Bianchi to make FSU’s coaches responsible for his son’s failures.  Classy.  Look, we all know that Chris Rix never deserved the level of criticism he deserved.  But that’s life on the big campus.  And maybe Jeff Bowden didn’t do a good enough job coaching him…I have no idea about that.  But reports (and more than one) were that Rix wasn’t exactly the most diligent student, on or off the field.  But that is a digression.  This isn’t about Chris Rix, Jr.  This is about Mike Bianchi’s shameful use of statements from Chris Rix, Sr. in an attempt to further indict Jeff Bowden’s coaching ability.  If Bianchi is writing opinion, he should write opinion.  If he is going to use quotes in a story, then he should get some quotes from Jeff Bowden as well.  In order to make himself look like a smart guy (a tall order, I’m sure) Bianchi has created his own hybrid column so that he might better manipulate his audience.  Don’t let this guy get away with insulting your intelligence that easily…

Bianchi also makes a weak attempt to convince us with numbers.  He tells us that there is statistical proof of how bad Jeff Bowden is at his job, and he gives us FSU’s ranking in total offense during Jeff Bowden’s tenure.  Bianchi points out that the last year of the Mark Richt era Florida State was number one in total offense.  What he doesn’t tell you is this…Richt’s quarterback was a fellow you may have heard of…Chris Weinke.  He was pretty good, wasn’t he?  Weinke also had the some pretty nice weapons at his disposal…Snoop Minnis, Anquan Boldin, Javon Walker, Travis Minor, Greg Jones…just to name a few.  This is just me, walking out on a limb here, but don’t you think Jeff Bowden would be a lot smarter with Chris Weinke at quarterback?  Or maybe Charlie Ward?  Yeah, me too.  I think Bowden might even have been a little smarter this year if Wyatt Sexton were healthy.  But I better not say that.  Bianchi would call that an excuse.  Of course I would have a very technical writers term for him, too…moron.

Bottom line…is Florida State’s offense as good as it was once was?  No.  Is it as good as it should be?  No.  Is that Jeff Bowden’s fault?  Quite possibly.  Is it Bobby Bowden’s fault?  Almost certainly.  Bobby is the head coach and resident legend, after all.  And even Bianchi was smart enough to include a quote from Jeff’s older brother Terry saying as much.  “Dad’s the one making $2 million a year.  The buck stops with him.”  And so it should.  If Bobby Bowden thinks he should can Jeff, then he probably will.  If he doesn’t, then he probably won’t.  Either way, it should be left in the hands of the man who made the Florida State football program what it is.  I doubt Bobby requires any assistance from Mike Bianchi on anything, much less help on running his football program.

After reading Bianchi, I can’t imagine anyone else in central Florida needs his help, either.  And that leaves me with just one question about Bianchi and his job:  How long has Bianchi’s Dad owned the Orlando Sentinel?  I can’t see him keeping it otherwise…

 

Contact The Chief Justice at chiefjustice@thehighcourtofsports.com.

 

 

 

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