Morris | Pressure is on Bowden to win ACC title

CLEMSON

YOU WOULD THINK with a three-year contract extension and a new annual salary somewhere in the $1.5 million range, Tommy Bowden would feel pretty comfortable these days.

Think again.

There is more pressure than ever on Bowden to win an ACC championship, whether the Clemson coach recognizes it or not.

“I don’t know so much about the pressure,” Bowden said Saturday following Clemson’s annual spring game at Death Valley. “I think if you react to that kind of stuff in this profession, you’re in the wrong profession — especially at a school like this.

“Maybe go to another school and another (lower NCAA) division. There will always be a pretty strong passion here to win, which is what you want. So, I don’t really call it pressure. That’s just a part of the profession.”

The irony of it all is that Bowden put most of the pressure to win a conference championship on himself. He has done just about everything right since signing on at Clemson nine seasons ago. His players graduate. He lines up solid recruiting class after solid recruiting class. His program steers clear of NCAA problems and off-field incidents.

With the near completion of the West Zone project at Memorial Stadium, Bowden now has the facilities to match any program in the ACC. Now, he enters another season with arguably his most talented team.

“As far as the overall makeup of the team and our ability with some talented players to make progress throughout the course of the season, I feel good,” Bowden said.

This Clemson team concluded spring practice with fewer questions to be answered than perhaps any of Bowden’s previous teams. The two major areas of concern are the offensive line and the linebacking corps.

The belief around Clemson is that this offensive line will soon be better than last season’s. It helps that following the season-opener against Alabama in Atlanta, Clemson gets four consecutive home games to further develop the line.

The linebacking unit will be inexperienced, but a team can hide a lot at those positions with a defensive front that should be among the best in the ACC. Bowden said it is a matter of one or two linebackers stepping up to be big-time playmakers.

“There’s still some questions going in,” Bowden said. “I feel real good about the nucleus of seniors and upperclassmen that have played from a leadership standpoint. Sometimes I’ve come out of spring with some questions on that, and I feel pretty good about that.”

Bowden senses that might be the area that separates this team from his previous Clemson clubs.

“I think that will be a critical factor because we do have some upperclassmen that have played in a lot of games here, and how they approach the offseason,” Bowden said. “I don’t have any doubt that they’ll work hard. They’ve always worked hard here in the offseason.

“I think there is a certain hunger that you have to achieve and passion to take the program to a level that we’ve been trying to get to the last few years. We’ve been close, and hopefully they’ve got to ask themselves, are we the guys that can take it to the next step?”

In falling short of the “next step,” Bowden’s teams have been remarkably consistent. All 11 of his teams, including the first four at Tulane, have qualified for bowl games. None have suffered through a losing season.

Bowden’s teams have an 87-46 record, including 53-31 in conference play. Never has a Bowden-coached team finished below .500 with the league.

Taken together, his accomplishments are quite good. But it is not good enough, at least in the minds of Clemson fans. Bowden has never won a conference championship.

His career has followed an eerily similar path to that of Mack Brown. Brown spent three seasons at Tulane, another 10 in the ACC at North Carolina and the past 10 at Texas. Despite all his success at each stop, it took until Brown’s 20th as a head coach to capture a conference championship. Texas also won the national title in 2005.

That is not to say Bowden will never win an ACC championship, or that he is destined to gain his first championship with another school. Rather, it is to say that just as Texas fans lost patience with Brown, Clemson fans soon will do the same with Bowden.

He needs to win an ACC championship to relieve all pressure — and the sooner the better for Clemson fans.