Bobby, Bobby Bobby …

I guess Florida State coach Bobby Bowden really cares about retiring as the all-time wins leader in college football.

How much does he care?

Reportedly enough to look for proof of what he says were 22 victories he earned coaching South Georgia Junior College from 1956-58.

Really.

Bowden, 79, is a single win behind Penn State’s 82-year-old Joe Paterno (383-382) but the NCAA intends to strip FSU of 14 wins over academic fraud involving some of Bowden’s players. With Bowden ostensibly set to step down by 2011, there's no way for him to make up that gap.

Unless ...

Bowden successfully petitioned the NCAA to accept 28 wins he earned from 1959-62 at Samford University, known then as Howard College. But junior college victories, I believe, are bit of a stretch.

Quote marks all around

Ten teams, 61 athletes. Those are the numbers involved in Florida State’s academic fraud.

So is 14 — that’s the number of wins Bobby Bowden’s football squad, the most notable of the teams affected, might have to surrender for using ineligible players.

So is the number 3. It stands for the learning specialist, the academic adviser and the tutor who not only helped the “student-athletes” cheat, but took tests and wrote papers for them. Wait — if I’m going to put quotes around “student-athletes,” I also should around “learning specialist,” “academic adviser” and “tutor.”

I sure the three … whatever they are … rationalized they were doing something good for the school and the kids — got to keep them on the field and on the court and in the pool, after all. The reputation of the university is at stake.

Now Bowden (that's him above), one behind Penn State’s Joe Paterno on the all-time college football winning list, might see his last chance to pass Paterno go down the drain.

Which I’m sure will bum out a legion of Seminole football fanatics — but doesn’t bother me one bit.