Bobby Bowden has been dropping hints for a couple months that 2009 -- or 2010 at the latest -- will be his last season after an illustrious 30-year run at Florida State. On one hand, Jimbo Fisher's coach-in-waiting contract is pushing Bowden out; on the other, it sounds like some significant coaching attrition may already be in the works:

Mickey Andrews, the coach of 18 NFL first-round draft picks, said the 2009 season could be his last.

"It may very well be," Andrews said during FSU's media day [on Sunday]. "I said one year last year, and this is the one year. I've got some things I've got to get done with my family that I haven't been able to do coaching.

"When I get out of coaching, it won't be because I can't coach or don't want to coach," Andrews added, "but I've got to do things that I owe my wife and our daughter and grandkids. That could very well be what happens after this."

It's hard to imagine Andrews in a family context minus his ever-present scowl, non-stop gum-chomping and drill sergeant intensity, furiously commanding his daughters to punish the mashed potatoes like Peter Boulware and Reinard Wilson once punished Danny Wuerffel. FSU's defense has been Andrews' baby since 1984, and for a while it was consistently the fastest, most intimidating, almost predatory D in the country: Andrews produced 26 full-fledged All-Americans (excluding honorable mentions, all-freshman teams, etc.) in 25 years, the vast majority in the nineties, when he specialized in converting linebacker recruits into a line of unstoppable edge rushers -- Derrick Alexander, Boulware, Wilson, Andre Wadsworth and Jamal Reynolds -- who specialized in knocking quarterbacks out of the lineup. The 'Noles have only produced six defensive All-Americans since 2000 (compared to 14 in the nineties), and only one terrifying pass rusher in the old mold (Everette Brown); the fearsome Seminole D has declined like everything else in Tallahassee.

But Andrews had to endure the sudden death of his son two years ago this month, so the 'family' talk is more than empty rhetoric for the reporters. And after a quarter-century, what Andrews and Bowden have is akin to coaching marriage; Bobby may still have visions of the glory days, but if Andrews is out at year's end, the prospect of turning over the defense to a completely new face and routine this late in the game would probably double the likelihood that Bowden calls it quits sooner rather than later.