Lovie Smith stood up for his new quarterback in response to some negative comments Bobby Bowden made about Jameis Winston Tuesday.
In an interview with Paul Finebaum, Bowden said Winston was at times an embarrassment to Florida State. He’s not wrong in his characterization of Winston’s time at Florida State, but the Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach still didn’t like hearing it.
“I’m disappointed. To say that the young man is an ’embarrassment?’ That’s pretty strong,” Smith said Wednesday via the Tampa Bay Times. “I just don’t think he’s speaking for all ..of Florida State, even though he’s in an official role there. Normally, what we’re doing today with our greats, you (embrace) them. Everybody on the outside may be throwing stones at them. Normally, when you’re in a family, you don’t do that. I’m very disappointed that somebody like that would make that type of statement.”
So Lovie is saying Bowden should just ignore all the trouble Winston got into while in school just because the quarterback was part of the Florida State family? That doesn’t make much sense.
But the most critical part of Smith’s comments seem to be how highly he and the Bucs think of their new QB.
“We do not see (Winston) as an embarrassment by any means,” Smith said. “He meant an awful lot to Florida State. I would never say that. The essential people at Florida State we talked to and no one said (Winston) was an embarrassment. It was the complete opposite, starting with Jimbo Fisher, their current football coach. That’s why I say I can’t believe it.”
All Smith had to do was follow the news just a bit to recognize how embarrassing Winston was for the school at times. Between yelling obscenities around campus to getting busted for stealing crab legs at a grocery store, he embarrassed the school plenty. And on top of all that, he was investigated for alleged sexual assault. What more do you need as proof of how embarrassing he was to the school at times? Maybe Lovie was too busy coaching the Bucs to a 2-14 season to realize all of that about Winston.
