Bowden's Seminoles finished as an AP top-5 team for 14 consecutive seasons, setting a record which doubled the closest program.

He made his final coaching appearance in the 2010 Gator Bowl game on January 1, 2010, with a 33–21 victory over his former program, West Virginia.

Bowden spent the last part of his career in a race with his close friend, Joe Paterno, to become the winningest NCAA Division I college football coach of all time.

[13] Bowden was an outstanding football player at Woodlawn High School in Birmingham, and accepted a scholarship to play for the University of Alabama as a quarterback.

[12] Bowden then transferred to Howard College, now known as Samford University, where he played football, baseball, ran track, and became a brother in Pi Kappa Alpha.

In his senior year, he was re-elected as Pi Kappa Alpha president and became captain of the Samford football team, where he garnered "Little All-America" honors as quarterback.

[12] He left his alma mater to become athletic director as well as head football, baseball, and basketball coach at South Georgia College from 1956 to 1958.

[17] During Bowden's first year as head coach at WVU, the football team of the state's other top-division school, Marshall University, was killed in a plane crash.

In memory of the victims of the crash, Mountaineers players put green crosses and the initials "MU" on their helmets.

The team had a 4–29 record over the previous three seasons and he planned to stay only briefly before taking a better job, perhaps as head coach at Alabama.

He said he would be content to finish his career at Florida State, however, and reportedly told another athletic-department employee he would "never coach anywhere north of Tallahassee".

From 1987 to 2000, the Seminoles finished every season with at least 10 wins and in the top 5 of the Associated Press College Football Poll, and won the national championship in 1993 and 1999.

Bowden's tenure crested with a third consecutive appearance in the national championship game after the 2000 season, a loss to Oklahoma in the 2001 Orange Bowl.

The Seminoles rebounded to 9-4 in 2008, but after barely qualifying for a bowl in 2009, Bowden was forced to announce his retirement effective at the end of the season.

Since both Florida State and Clemson are in the same division of the ACC for football, the two teams played each other every year from 1999 through 2007 in a game that became known as the "Bowden Bowl".

Their 1999 meeting was the first time in Division I-A history that a father and a son met as opposing head coaches in a football game.

All three Bowden men who were head coaches have achieved an undefeated season: Terry in 1993 at Auburn; Tommy in 1998 at Tulane; and Bobby in 1999 at Florida State.

Bowden then lay in repose in the Reid Chapel at Samford University on August 15, prior to burial in Trussville, Alabama.

The award recognizes a coach each year with unmatched success on and off of the field in the same attributes that Bowden showed throughout his career: perseverance, attitude, integrity, and determination.

[44] From 1987 through 2000, Bowden coached Florida State to 14 straight seasons with 10 or more victories, and his team had a final ranking in the top five of the major polls.