With 377 wins as a college football head coach and 86 years on this earth, there may be no one more qualified to pass judgement on a coaching legacy than former Florida State coach Bobby Bowden.

He joined WDGM 99.1 FM in Tuscaloosa for an interview recently, and the topic of Nick Saban came up.

When asked to define Saban’s run of four national championships in his last seven seasons, Bowden had this to say:

“I define it as as good of a run as anybody has had… His five year run there, I don’t think it has been matched.”

But is he ready to place Saban among the greats, such as himself, Bear Bryant and Joe Paterno?

“Not yet.”

That was not to be interpreted as a slight at Saban’s accomplishments, rather that Bowden prefers to compare careers once they are finished. He said it’s unfair to put Saban’s incomplete work up against guys that have closed the book on their coaching careers.

Bowden said Saban’s job for 2016 will be a difficult one, as coaching a team coming off a national title run is always tough.

“I think most coaches would agree that it is easier to get to the top than it is to stay there,” Bowden said. “That’s the thing that Nick has done and the thing that Coach Bryant did. They moved to the top and stayed there. I found this out at Florida State. Once you win a national championship, your people expect you to do it every year. That’s how it went at Florida State. We were in the Top 5 for 14 straight years, but we only won two national championships. And it got to when you start the season and you lose a ball game, your fans say ‘That’s OK, we can still win a national championship with one loss.’ But if you lose two… they go home, man.”

You can listen to the complete interview here: