Rough Waters: 3 ACC coaches feel heat

In the fragmented congestion of modern TV, ACC football offers its own reality show: "Embattled Coach."

Embattled is a journalistic code word that comes right after controversial and right before fired. A controversial person can survive a media storm, but once any public figure becomes embattled, the bull's-eye goes up, and the chances for job rescue go down.

David Letterman has been called many things since revealing his affairs with female employees, but nobody credible has called Letterman embattled, which means that he will keep working the CBS beat until further legal notice.

Three ACC schools employ embattled coaches. Ralph Friedgen is Maryland's embattled boss. It said so right there in The Washington Post last week. Maryland, which had lost to Middle Tennessee for the second straight year, Cal and Rutgers, somehow upset Clemson. Friedgen lashed out at his media needlers and booing fans.

"I've been at this 41 years," he said. "I have won most of my career. If they want me out of here, I will go somewhere else. I think I am pretty well respected in the profession."

Al Groh is the embattled captain of the mounted Virginia brigade. He has been embattled so long that beating North Carolina again might not mollify the booster buyout squad.

No one's immune

In the most curious case of all, 79-year-old patriarch Bobby Bowden has become the embattled figurehead of Florida State football. It's curious because Bowden isn't battling his boss. President T.K. Wetherell, who played for assistant coach Bowden in the 1960s, repudiates any attempt to dump Bowden right now.

"FSU doesn't make changes in the middle of the season," Wetherell announced yesterday, trying to smother the brush fires that spread after a 28-21 loss at Boston College dropped the record to 2-3. "To quit on a team or coach in midseason is not the Seminole way…."

Wetherell will retire as soon as FSU picks a successor, and FSU politicians would prefer a football resolution before the new president takes office. That gets messy because the planned transition from Bowden to offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher carries a January 2011 deadline. If Bowden hangs on longer than that, which seems unfathomable given the FSU civil war, Fisher would collect a $5 million delay-of-game penalty.

Friedgen also operates with a coach-in-waiting peering over his shoulder, offensive coordinator James Franklin. Athletics Director Debbie Yow bequeathed the title last February to keep Franklin around through 2011, when he would either get Friedgen's job or $1 million.

A time for dignity

The coach-in-waiting idea invites trouble. It suggests that the current coach is either too old or too lame to hang on much longer. The next coach carries a big stick, so a team's continued decline invites questions about his alleged brilliance. If and when the change finally occurs, the coach-in-waiting has waited so long that his promotion supplies little energy.

Bowden, who has won 384 games and two national titles, raised hackles with his timetable: "I'll wait until the end of the year to evaluate myself." The remark riled Jim Smith, the trustee's chairman. "Enough is enough," Smith said, arguing that Bowden's slide is approaching eight years.

The record supports Smith, but Bowden's extensive service and amiable personality make this a special case pleading for dignity. Bowden chafes under the criticism, which was obvious during a teleconference yesterday despite his denials.

"You know, if I was 40 years old, I'd be shaking in my boots, but I'm 79," he said. "I've been through it. Most of my coaching is behind me. No, it doesn't bother me…. When you get my age and you know you're not going to coach forever, you would like to go out on top, so it's disappointing to me right now. Most of the team's coming back next year, but we want to do it now. What I try to tell my people is, the season's not over."

The most likely happening: Embattled Bobby Bowden will turn the whistle over to the coach-in-waiting. Some folks will cry. Many will yawn, a common reaction to telegraphed news in the digital age.

lrawlings@wsjournal.com