I’m in the same boat as many of the critics. I hated the way the throwback uniform socks looked, but not because of the color scheme or that they were vertical. I hated the look because they were striped, regardless of direction. I look at football uniforms in the same light as baseball, and anything below the knee being multi-colored is just annoying.

Vertical stripes create a problem of appearance. Either you try to keep them looking perfectly straight, or make sure they’re twisted like a cyclone. If either fails, you look like a crooked idiot. If you succeed, you look like you care about your looks and deserve to walk the catwalk instead. Horizontal stripes on the other hand are just too damn busy. The uniform designers try to make it appear as if they’re wearing regular socks pulled up really high on top of tights. It’s a stupid look entirely, and they should just be solid. I don’t care if the color’s powder blue like the Chargers of old. They’ll indeed look like smurfs, but at least they’ll look like cool smurfs and be less off an eyesore to Gargamel.

Just imagine if you’re tripping on some acid and you get all these annoying stripes flying past you on screen. It’ll be an awesome event to watch as you’re trying to figure out which leg belongs to which team, and which color belongs on the ground. I think this is what all those uniform designers do when they’re dreaming up what the look should be. Whoever dreamed up those vertical yellow and brown socks way back when probably looked at the other designers and laughed. They realized they could make their socks look worse without needing a drop some acid, and here they are today, still as trippy as ever. Kudos to the jackass who dreamed up those socks and beat everyone at the game.

Prior to the post of head coach being filled by Bobby Bowden in 1976, there was practically nothing there for the university. Believe me when I say that nearly nobody wants to live in Tallahassee when there are some very nice places just to the west and on the beach. What was there was an all-female teaching school. Sure, they might’ve had males start attending before he got there, but it doesn’t matter. Bowden grew that little school into a football powerhouse, and by powerhouse I mean a true powerhouse for well more than a decade. He shifted the balance of power away from the Big 10 and other northern schools. The University of Florida wouldn’t have had the success it’s having now if it wasn’t for Bowden being too damn good at recruiting and they started getting table scraps at the swamp at the beginning.

We see the trickle-down effect still happening with Southern Florida and to a lesser degree Central Florida. Hell, you’ve seen the SEC grow around him because all schools around him are SEC while FSU is ACC now, but was independent for a long time. You’re even seeing little old Troy starting to pack a bite. This is the Bowden effect, and it is caused from a few attributes of his. He’s a nice good ole boy that knows how to run a football team. It’s no accident that he’s sitting atop the wins list with Joe Paterno.

By far the best way to grow a little school in Florida into a monster powerhouse of a football school is to head to the snowy north and tap into the powerhouses of the day. He had something all those schools didn’t, beautiful girls on campus, and I’m not talking “oh, she looks like in that coat” kind of beautiful. I’m talking tanned, fit, beautiful girls who love the outdoors and the beach. He’d bring the recruits down and almost never talk about football. He’d just walk them around campus to look at all the girls and tell them they dress like that year-round. When he began, the ratio was probably 20 girls per guy, a college football player’s dream. Let’s just say he didn’t have a problem collecting blue chip athletes.

Bowden is currently in his 34^th season at FSU with a stupid record of 309-91-4 during the previous 33. In those years, he’s had 20 bowl wins, two national championships, and a perfect season. Since joining the ACC in 1991, he’s won the conference 12 of the 18 years. That’s not just winning games occasionally; that’s winning the entire conference 67% of the time.

Fuck the boosters for getting spoiled by possibly the best college football coach in history. I’m an Irish fan through and through, and it pained me when FSU won out over Notre Dame in the early 1990s. It also pains me to say this, but I can’t deny the truth. Bobby Bowden is a modern-day Knute Rockne and in many ways much better. Bringing a team from obscurity to the power that is the top can only be achieved by a select few, and every one of them has earned every right to decide when they want to leave. Rockne left under his own decision, and Bowden should too.

How old are the asses trying to force him out anyway? Do they even remember a day without Bowden coaching the Noles? They’re spoiled from his success, and he might very well be having a losing season this year. A single losing season doesn’t justify a firing or forced resignation, nor does a 3 year drought on conference championships. Every business ebbs and flows, and the fact that Bobby Bowden has successfully lead the Seminoles to a winning season, every fucking year, after his first year with irrational, hormonal kids is mind blowing.

So numbnuts, how about you do us all a favor and grab one of those spears and play a nice little game that’s called seppuku? I bet you’ll enjoy it thoroughly. Bowden has earned every right to decide when he rides his golf cart into the sunset and not be told what to do by some pencil-neck who couldn’t physically flip a paper bag over on a good day. He was continuously told that he could coach as long as he wanted to for a good fucking reason. The entire success of the university has ridden on his shoulders for decades. The money from his successful football program grew the school and allowed opportunities to students otherwise unavailable. Fuck it, just go slit your wrists and stop badgering people.