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College-Football Notebook: Bowden says he'll be back; Steele is hired by Clemson
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Published: January 10, 2009
■ Bobby Bowden said he'll be back for a 34th season as coach at Florida State.
Bowden, 79, said yesterday that details of his new contract are being completed. He also said that his longtime defensive coordinator, Mickey Andrews, will return.
Bowden makes slightly more than $2 million a year. He has 382 career wins, one fewer than Penn State's Joe Paterno, 82, the winningest coach in major-college football.
Florida State was 9-4 this season and No. 21 in the final AP poll.
■ Kevin Steele, the defensive head coach at Alabama and the man who figured out how to stop Clemson's offense, was hired yesterday as Clemson's defensive coordinator.
It was Steele's Crimson Tide defense that held the ninth-ranked Tigers' vaunted "Thunder and Lightning" backfield duo of James Davis and C.J. Spiller to zero yards net rushing in a 34-10 victory in August.
That defeat set the stage for Clemson's stunning fall and led to Coach Tommy Bowden stepping down in midseason. Dabo Swinney took over as interim coach in October, then was given the job on a full-time basis.
Steele is the latest coach with Alabama connections to join the staff of Swinney, an Alabama native who played for the Tide and was an assistant at the school. He previously brought on his former position coach Woody McCorvey and staffers Danny Pearman and Charlie Harbison.
Steele also has been the executive head coach and linebackers coach at Florida State (2003-06), the head coach at Baylor (1999-2002) and an assistant with the Carolina Panthers.
■ Don Brown has resigned as the head coach at Massachusetts to become the defensive coordinator at Maryland. Athletics Director John McCutcheon of UMass made the announcement yesterday and said that a national search for a coach will start immediately.
In five seasons as head coach, Brown went 43-19 and led the Minutemen to the NCAA playoffs twice, including the 2006 NCAA title game.
■ Running back Glen Coffee of Alabama and wide receiver Jeremy Maclin of Missouri are headed to the NFL Draft. Linebacker Micah Johnson of Kentucky is staying in school for his senior season.
Coffee ranked second in the SEC with 1,383 yards rushing this season.
Maclin, a sophomore, was a two-time All-America who led the nation in all-purpose yards (2,833) and had 17 touchdowns and 102 catches this season.
Kentucky's Johnson said that NFL evaluators ranked him as a third- through fifth-round pick. He had 93 tackles, including a team-high 13 for losses, and 2.5 sacks to help the Wildcats to a 7-6 season.
■ Cal Poly found its new coach at the school that wooed its old one, hiring offensive coordinator Tim Walsh from Army two weeks after Rich Ellerson left to become Army's coach.
"Tim Walsh brings all of the qualities we were looking for in a head coach," AD Alison Cone of Cal Poly said.
Walsh, 54, spent the last two years at Army, where he was also quarterbacks coach. Before that he coached Portland State (1993-2006) and Sonoma State (1989-92) and led his teams to a 117-82 record.
■ Coach Bradley Dal Peveto of Northwestern State has added three former colleagues at LSU to his staff.
Peveto, an LSU assistant the past four years and the Tigers' co-defensive coordinator last season, hired Shawn Quinn, Brendan Farrell and Darren Drago, who all worked with Peveto at LSU last season.
Quinn was named co-defensive coordinator and defensive line coach, Farrell will coach tight ends and special teams, and Drago will coach linebackers and coordinate recruiting.
■ Quarterback Chris Smelley is leaving the South Carolina football team to play baseball at another school.
Smelley said he decided a change of scenery was the best thing for him, and that he has not yet chosen a new school.
Smelley played in 21 games at South Carolina, going 5-4 as a starter. He never played consistently enough to keep the starting job very long.
Smelley's move leaves freshman Stephen Garcia as the only experienced quarterback on next year's Gamecocks roster.
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