There are those who count their blessings that Bobby Bowden coaches football at Florida State. Bowden is one of them.

Melodramatics aside, had FSU not beaten Louisiana State on a night 12 years ago, Bowden would have left FSU.

Had he left, he might be dead.

Had he left, FSU's football program might be dead and reborn.

Blessings?

"I've always taken the approach that when you do something, you don't look back," Bowden said.

Except this time.

It was Oct. 27, 1979. Then, as now, Bowden took an unbeaten Seminoles team into Baton Rouge, La., to face LSU.

LSU coach Charlie McClendon already had announced his retirement, effective the end of the season, and Bowden was on a list of potential replacements. Nebraska's Tom Osborne, East Carolina's Pat Dye and Arkansas' Lou Holtz also were on LSU Athletic Director Paul Dietzel's list. Bowden and Dietzel got along famously.

Bowden, disappointed that businesses around the state were slow to sponsor his Sunday football show that year, seriously considered leaving.

"I'd always wanted to be a coach in the Southeast, like Alabama or Georgia," Bowden said. "But nothing suited me better than LSU. That was a prime job back then, because you had the whole state to yourself (for recruiting).

"He (Dietzel) was going to offer me the job. He'd already told me he was going to offer it to me. I remember the press kept asking me what I was going to do. I told them I'd talk about it at the right time.

"That was the weekend, the game, where I really made the decision to stay at Florida State," he said. "That was back in the days when people didn't beat LSU at home. I went into that game thinking if we can beat them, maybe we can get it done down here.

"And after we won (24-19), Ann (Bowden's wife) and I talked about staying, and then they came back and gave me what I wanted."

Actually, FSU Athletic Director John Bridgers offered an attractive 5-year contract worth more than $500,000 before the game. A week after FSU's victory, Bowden signed the deal, which contained a rollover clause that endures today.

LSU, meanwhile, signed North Carolina State coach Bo Rein as its new coach. Not long afterward, a plane carrying Rein on a recruiting trip plunged into the Atlantic Ocean. Rein never coached a game in Tiger Stadium.

"I was at a coaching clinic when someone said Bo Rein got killed," Bowden said. "It was very shocking to me. That could have been me. I've thought about that an awful lot."

NOTE: DE Dan Footman, a pass-rushing specialist for most of 1991, will start Saturday in place of Henry Ostaszewski. Footman has improved almost weekly in his play against the run.