It has been more than eight years since Bobby Bowden had 12 victories stripped from his coaching record and the Seminoles’ athletic programs saw numerous other wins and honors taken away due to NCAA sanctions following an academic fraud scandal.
But in the wake of the NCAA’s recent ruling that the University of North Carolina will receive no punishment from its own academic scandal -- one that was far more widespread and lasted many years -- FSU officials have begun looking into the possibility of revisiting their case.
“We hired a lawyer or two to kind of take a look at it,” FSU President John Thrasher told Warchant.com in an interview. “They’ll give us some advice as to whether or not it will be something we ought to pursue.”
Bowden, who won 389 games during his legendary career, officially only has 377 victories due to the 2009 NCAA ruling. He ranks second all-time behind former Penn State coach Joe Paterno, who coincidentally had more than 100 of his victories reinstated due to an NCAA decision in 2015.
Paterno’s wins initially were vacated in the fallout of the Jerry Sandusky child-molestation scandal in 2012, but the university and the NCAA later agreed to have them returned as part of a settlement in that case.
Although Bowden had no knowledge of the improprieties involving a music appreciation class, he had a dozen wins vacated in the 2006 and 2007 seasons. The Seminoles also had to give up their 2007 men’s track national championship as well as numerous victories in other sports.
FSU appealed the NCAA’s decision on a number of fronts but failed to get the ruling overturned.
"There was no coach involved in this,” former FSU President T.K. Wetherell said at the time. "The one group of people that were not involved in this thing were the coaches. They’re the one group that’s being penalized.”
Even if the victories are returned, Bowden still would sit in second place on the all-time wins list behind Paterno. But the legendary coach has said in the past that he’d like to have the victories back on his record, and Thrasher shares that sentiment.
“Look, I think Coach Bowden’s obviously one of the greatest coaches of all time,” Thrasher said. “I still admire him, and he’s an icon. If there’s something there we could do to get those back for him, I’d love to do it. I’d love to do it. So we’ll see.”
* Tribal Council extra: What we're hearing on FSU's chances to make this happen
Thrasher said it’s too early to know how exactly FSU would fight for the reversal at this point, eight years after the Seminoles lost their appeal. But he said athletics director Stan Wilcox and the attorneys are examining their options.
“We’re gonna look at it,” Thrasher said. “I asked Stan to take a look at it … whether they’ll take it under consideration (at the NCAA level) or not, I don’t know. But we’re going to take a look.”
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Talk about this story with other Florida State football fans in the Tribal Council
