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Bowden, Weinke ready for more
The first hurdle every defending national champion must clear is complacency, a condition contracted from all those fans and notetakers telling you how good you are. Fear not, Florida State faithful. The Seminoles' coach and their on-field leader are both on the alert. In fact, Bobby Bowden and Chris Weinke have been hungry from nearly the moment they walked out of the Superdome last January. Literally hungry, anyway. Both Bowden and Weinke have been dieting for the last six months. The 70-year-old coach dropped 17 pounds, all the way to 179 -- "I hadn't been under 180 in 20 years," he said -- before settling in the mid-180s. Weinke, who played last season at 245 pounds, has slimmed down to 229. Bowden swore off bread, potatoes, dessert, nuts and between-meal snacks in order to get ready for this fall. He knows the bouts of nerves will soon arrive. "By December, I'm eating anything," he says. Weinke slimmed down for different reasons. After suffering a neck injury in November 1998 that nearly left him paralyzed, he bulked up in preparation for last season. "I was thinking that the bigger and stronger I was, the more protected I would be," Weinke says. "But it hurt me in terms of what I could do physically." By making himself bigger, yet less mobile, all Weinke did was make himself more of a target. So his pants are looser, and he figures he will be, too. That said, both coach and quarterback are figuratively hungry, too. In a way, one hunger feeds the other. "One of the greatest signs of dedication is weight loss," Bowden says, speaking of his players, not necessarily himself. "When your 300-pound tackles come in at 350, that worries you. When they come in at 298, ooooweeee [approximate spelling], you like to see that." Weinke may go to school in Tallahassee but he comes out of the Michael Jordan Institute for Competitive Instincts. Take this week's ACC Football Kickoff meeting in Hot Springs, Va. Weinke played in a golf tournament for the coaches, writers and players on Sunday. After the round, as the other golfers drifted toward the parking lot, he hovered over the scorecards, studying them to see whether his group would win. "Complacency?" he asks. "I won't let it happen to myself and I won't let it happen to other players. Guys are hungry. Guys are scared to lose. When it's 105 degrees, no one wants to run. But when it comes down to it in the fourth quarter, and it's a team from up north or out west playing us, they are going to be hurting more than we are." Both Bowden and Weinke have enjoyed the relative quiet of summer. Bowden can compare it only to the period after his first national championship, when the celebration parade crashed headlong into the Foot Locker scandal. This winter and spring have been without incident, especially since kicker Sebastian Janikowski is now Al Davis's headache. For Weinke, it has been a quiet summer, too. A year ago, he had to answer one question after another about his neck. Two years ago, he had to contend with being a 26-year-old sophomore thrust into the starting position after Dan Kendra blew out his knee in spring practice. He still gets questions about being a 28-year-old senior, which he could do without. "By the way, I'm not 28 until July 31," he says. "There are times when I'm sitting there filling out a form and under YEAR OF BIRTH I'm filling out '72 and the guy next to me is writing '82. There are times when I realize [the difference in age]. I try to roll with the punches, understand these guys are younger. Have patience. I acted the same way." Weinke can recall how it feels to be 18, yet another trait he shares with his coach. Bowden refuses to age. He has found plenty of goals for his team to reach. The Seminoles want to extend their streak of consecutive years with a Top 4 finish to 14. They want to win their ninth consecutive ACC championship, which would encompass, yes, every year they've been in the league. And one more -- Florida State has never gone 13-0. Don't forget the preseason bowl game -- a.k.a. the Pigskin Classic, in Jacksonville -- against BYU on Aug. 26. Bowden is ready. "I keep waiting for the day when it ain't," he says, "but it's still fun." Sports Illustrated senior writer Ivan Maisel covers the college football beat for the magazine and will appear each Saturday this fall on CNN's "College Football Preview."
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