T. Bowden to WVU? As the Coaching Carousel Turns

It has been nine season since Terry Bowden last roamed the sidelines as a head coach, but he is now making it known that he would like to return as the head coach of the West Virginia Mountaineers.

This is an interesting turn of events because Bowden has likely waited EXACTLY long enough to be an attractive candidate. Because of his high profile role alongside John Saunders in ABC's college football coverage, today's high schoolers know Terry Bowden well. Plus, Terry grew up in Morgantown and played for WVU so they can replace their hometown boy, Rich Rodriguez, with another hometown boy. This one, honestly, doesn't seem greedy or power-hungry enough to bolt early.

Terry's relation to plain-speaking good ole boy Bobby Bowden belies his education. He was magna cum laude at WVU while a two-year letterwinner. He then did post-grad work at Oxford and obtained a juris doctorate from Florida State's College of Law.

Bowden was 47-17-1 at Auburn, including going undefeated in 1993 in his first year as their coach (Auburn was on probation). He resigned after 6 games in 1998 after getting off to a 1-5 start.

If Bowden's heart is in it, I think this would be a great move for WVU.

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As an aside, why does it seem unseemly when a coaching candidate lobbies on his own behalf? The President has to virtually beg for his job, but we want our head coaches to be pursued? It makes no sense.

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Oh, and WBGV (Birmingham, AL) is reporting that Nick Saban has contacted WVU to express interest in the vacancy. You have got to be kidding me. If that's true, can we blacklist this man? I can't find any non-blog support for this report.