30 best college football coaches of all time, ranked

4. Bobby Bowden, West Virginia 1970-1975, Florida State 1976-2009

Many people might not realize that Bobby Bowden was once the head coach of West Virginia University. He’s Mr. Florida State, so it’s no surprise people don’t know what he did before he was in Tallahassee. But he got his first coaching job in Morgantown. One interesting story is Bowden’s ties to WVU interstate rival Marshall. When the plane crash killed the entire football team in 1970, Bowden offered to have the Mountaineers wear Marshall’s uniform and play their last game. He was denied, but he eventually helped the Thundering Herd recover by showing their new head coach Jack Lengyel the veer offense. Bowden had said he was a candidate for Marshall’s head coaching job earlier in his career, and turning it down saved his life.

In 1975, he accepted a move to Florida State, a job he would hold for the next 34 years. He had one losing season in his career at FSU, and it was in the first year. From 1976 to 1986, Bowden’s Florida State teams were good, but they weren’t great. His best team of that era was the 11-1 team in 1979 that finished sixth in the final poll after losing the Orange Bowl.

Once we got to 1986, Florida State turned into a national monster in recruiting and on the field. They ranked in the top five at the end of every season from 1987 to 1991. Then, they joined the ACC. That’s when FSU became really dominant. They won the conference for their first nine seasons in the conference. They made it to a big-four bowl game every season, winning it six times in that time frame. He also won two national championships in that era.

Bowden is a legacy in college football. He will always be synonymous with Seminoles football. When he passed away in 2021, it showed the impact he had on the game with how many people shared stories of how he touched their lives.