Bowden: Florida State wouldn't have won national title in SEC

Published May. 13, 2015 1:45 p.m. ET

Teddy Mitrosilis

As far as radio interviews go, Bobby Bowden had a Hall of Fame appearance on Tuesday.

The former Florida State coach went on Paul Finebaum's show and created ripples on two different fronts.

First, Bowden said Jameis Winston was an "embarrassment" to FSU, given the littany of off-field issues he faced, including sexual assault allegations.

Here is Bowden's full quote so it's not taken out of context:

"Well, I think it's a consensus among Florida State fans and boosters that he was an embarrassment in a lot of ways to the university. He won a lot of ballgames, probably one of the best football players that ever attended Florida State, but he hurt himself off the field. The good news is that he's young enough to get over that, ya know it, and he's gotta do that. He just can't make those junior high school decisions that he made while he was in college."

Then, Bowden told the story of how Florida State joined the ACC in the early 1990s instead of the SEC. Bowden's reasoning was that Florida State would have had a tough time winning a national championship if it had to go through the SEC.

"I felt that it was too difficult to win through the SEC to win a national championship," Bowden told Finebaum. "I felt like our best route would be to go through the ACC and that did prove out to be correct. I don't know if we could have made it through the SEC."

FSU won national titles in '93 and '99, and under current coach Jimbo Fisher the Noles won a title in 2013. They also, of course, were one of the four teams to make the inaugural College Football Playoff last season.

So plenty of success has followed at FSU after it joined the ACC. Plus, nobody actually cares what conference a program is in when it wins a national title -- just that it wins the title.

But Bowden's comments won't endear any FSU fans who are tired of hearing how superior the SEC is.

Teddy Mitrosilis works in content production at FOX Sports Digital. Follow him on Twitter @TMitrosilis and email him at tmitrosilis@gmail.com.