Bleachers added for Bowden’s last game
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Gator Bowl is adding extra seats for Bobby Bowden’s finale.
Two days after the bowl announced a sellout for its Jan. 1 game between Florida State and No. 18 West Virginia, organizers decided to add temporary bleachers — much like the city does for the annual Florida-Georgia game at Jacksonville Municipal Stadium.
The bleachers will provide an extra 6,000 seats, with the tickets getting split evenly between the schools.
The extra seats will increase stadium capacity to 83,500. The Gator Bowl sold every ticket to the game in less than two hours Sunday.
Bowden announced last week that the bowl game would be his last. The Gator Bowl passed up Clemson, Miami and Boston College to select the Seminoles and give Bowden an alluring matchup in his finale.
Count Mountaineers coach Bill Stewart as one who is happy to go against the man who was his first college coach.
“I’m just a drop in a bucket compared to him, and everyone knows that,” Stewart said. “That doesn’t bother me. He was my coach and I love the man. All of the accolades he gets, he deserves, and I will be right there on the podium clapping louder that anyone.”
Bowden has stated publicly that he won’t apologize for his team getting the Gator Bowl bid over ACC teams with better records.
And Stewart anticipates the fact that it is Bowden’s last game, against a team he once coached, should make it a great game.
“It will be tough,” Stewart said. “You know how he gets those guys ready to play. I saw it first-hand as a player here. I was only a freshman and didn’t play on the varsity. I just saw how the players here loved coach Bowden and how revered he was by his coaches and players. He will have them ready as only he can do, and it will be a real challenge because they are going to want to go out with a real bang for coach Bowden.”
