FanHouse Penn State Football

Penn State just got a commitment from an unranked wide receiver who plays running back for his high school team. PSU fans are naturally a little wary, especially given their struggles recruiting skill position talent of late, and this didn't help:

"I liked the coaches, and I think it's an up-and coming program," he said, adding that "I really do believe better days for Penn State are coming."

...and we've all mentally inserted "when JoePa finally retires," haven't we? Kuntz also had this beauty:

"My dad and I searched the internet looking at UConn and Penn State's rosters and where they are in terms of depth at wide receiver. Penn State doesn't look like they have much (coming back) and me coming in as a freshman that's going to be a huge advantage for me to hopefully play four years for them."

When you're considering UConn and Penn State and you pick Penn State for playing time, the Pennsylvania apocalypse is nigh. It was nice knowing you, Pennsylvania. Except Philadelphia.

Also, yes: hur hur hur he's got a funny last name. Have we mentioned Michigan picked up a commitment from Shavodrick Beaver? If this was Idiocracy, we would all be laughing so hard we would die.

FanHouse is counting down the ten best, ten worst, and ten weirdest moments in Big Ten football history.

There's probably no more unlikely final point total for a football team than four. There's only one way to achieve that score, and that's with two safeties. The only less likely total is one, the winner's score in any forfeited game.

In October 2004 two teams with killer defenses and iffy offenses met in Happy Valley. The Iowa Hawkeyes were having a pretty good season; the Nittany Lions weren't. A botched snap on the first possession of the game led to a PSU safety, giving them their first lead in a Big Ten game all season. Iowa, behind QB Drew Tate, couldn't find the end zone all day; if not for two Kyle Schlicher field goals, they'd have gone scoreless. But Penn State couldn't even accomplish that much on offense. Quarterbacks Zack Mills and Michael Robinson combined for 96 yards and four interceptions, including a game-icing pick late in the fourth quarter. Nit rushers contributed an additional 66 yards, for a game total of 162 yards of offense. Iowa's numbers weren't much better.

For fans like me who love to watch great defense the game was a treat. But late in the game came one of the harshest on-the-field disses one coach has ever laid on another.

For over two years now, a cloud has hung over USC's head through the stalemate of the NCAA's investigation into allegations that former star tailback and Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush accepted cash and gifts against NCAA rules. Obviously some sort of punishment against USC would be leveled if the NCAA found truth in the allegations.

Future unrest is usually trouble on the recruiting trail, just ask Penn State how much it has to answer to endless talk of Joe Paterno's retirement or dismissal. In spite of that, and of little surprise given Pete Carroll's ability to pitch, USC keeps smoking along on the recruiting trail.

They added Rivals.com's top player, quarterback Matt Barkley, this spring. Since then they've assembled a class of 15 players solid enough to rank second on Rivals.com's initial recruiting rankings and just behind Ohio State which already had 20+ commitments. If form holds it's another top five, maybe even No. 1 class.

Everyone knows USC is going to take some kind of hit from the NCAA, but the way high profile recruits keep arriving sends the message they're not worried about those pending sanctions.

It seems every paper in Pennsylvania has a reporter dedicated to scouring the seven seas for information about Joe Paterno's pending retirement: is it pending? Like... how pending? Are we talking "imminent" or "his dessicated bones will still lord over us when it's Planet of the Apes time?" And who will they hire? Schiano? Al Golden? Bender?

No one knows. Except maybe these guys:

Players recruited by the Nittany Lions are being assured that when Paterno retires, his replacement will come from the current coaching staff rather than an outside hire.

''Mr. Paterno told me himself that his replacement is already within the staff, so he'll just bring one new guy in and bump everybody up in the ranks,'' linebacker Mike Yancich from Washington, Pa., said.

Any reasonable observer must therefore conclude that the job will go to defensive coordinator Tom Bradley, and outpost of competence amongst-

What about me?

Find out after the jump.

JUNIOR, COME DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT

No!

YOUR MEAL WILL GET COLD, AND THAT WILL MAKE YOU EVEN MORE UNPLEASANT THAN USUAL. WHY ARE YOU STILL UPSTAIRS

I'm on the internet. I have important business to take care of.

YOU HAD BETTER NOT BE KEEPING US WAITING SO YOU MAY WETHUMP YOUR OWN HAND. I HAVE BEEN ON THE INTERNET AND I DO NOT LIKE IT

THERE WAS ONE WEBSITE WITH TWO GIRLS THAT APPEARED TO HAVE THE WORST OF GASTROINTESTINAL PROBLEMS

GOD BLESS THEM, THOUGH, THEY SEEMED TO BE WORKING THROUGH THEIR TROUBLES TOGETHER

That apple fell far from the tree, politically. And, perhaps, in overall football competence.

So anyway, Penn State quarterback coach Jay Peterno spends some of his workday hours blogging in support of Barack Obama. I'm not here to judge but it seems an unusual use of office time for someone basically credited with the disastrous Penn State quarterback situation the last few years. And of course, Penn State fans are letting him hear about it.

By Joe Eb from York, PA Jun 20th 2008 at 9:52 am EDT And Jay you should be worrying about the offense of a college football team that has a LOT of questions, not blogging about Obama.

By Jay Paterno Jun 20th 2008 at 10:02 am EDT For your information our offense was #1 in the Big Ten last year in the only two categories that we really look at: the key situations of Red Zone and Third Downs (and to a lesser extent 4th downs where we ranked #7 in the nation).

Yeah. Read the whole thing for inevitable comment deletions, "Zach Mills" never-ending arguments and other hilarity.

A regular trip through the college football blogosphere.

1. That list is how long? A list of Penn State malfeasance since 2002 has been kicking around message boards for the past few weeks and may have even spurred ESPN to sic Outside the Lines on the Nits. It has 61(!!!) separate incidents featuring Penn State players and the long arm of the law. Or, sometimes, the long arm of nothing in particular:

53. Joe Paterno - Road Rage - No Charges

As much as we all love the possibly apocryphal JoePa road rage incident, it resulted in no charges and, uh, did not involve a Penn State player.

Many of the other incidents are arrests that resulted in acquittals or college kids getting busted for holding a half-full Natty Lite, which is punishment in an of itself. The list is overstated. But how much?

Run Up The Score breaks it down for you. The general conclusion:

All in all, the Penn State Nittany Lions don't have a widespread, 1988 Miami Hurricanes style criminal gang disguised in plain football uniforms. They have a drinking and fighting problem. Players aren't shooting guns or selling drugs. They're getting loaded and brawling. While I take modest comfort in the fact that the football roster doesn't double as a suspect list from The Wire, there is still a rather obvious behavioral problem within the program.

This is probably because the man they should fear more than any other is kind of ancient and "works from home."

The saying goes that nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people. Being that there's no more direct route to bankruptcy than by incurring a lawsuit, our legal department has ordered me under threat of torture enhanced interrogation that I inform everybody that what follows is not true. I would have guessed you knew that, but I also would have guessed Dunston Checks In was not a real movie, so there you go. Anyway, these are lies with jokes.

Scene: Joe Paterno's Office

AND THAT IS WHY UNTIL THE LATE 19TH CENTURY, "POPE" WAS PRONOUNCED "POOP"

I'm not even Catholic and I find that deeply offensive. And totally incorrect.

IT IS IN THE BIBLE

Oh it isn't either.

RING

SECRETARY, MAKE THAT DEMON BOX STOP RINGING

It's a telephone. Even you use telephones.

THIS ONE TALKS TO THE WHOLE ROOM, AND THAT IS UNDOUBTEDLY THE WORK OF BLACK MAGICKS

RING

THERE IT GOES AGAIN

Sigh. Fine. I'll get it. Joe Paterno's office, secretary speaking.

Hi, this is a very concerned reporter with ESPN. We just wanted you to know that despite repeated requests for interviews

I'LL NOT BE GRANTING ANY INTERVIEWS TO A NEWS ORGANIZATION THAT RUTHLESSLY SLANDERED MY QUARTERBACK FOR CALLING HIM AN IRISHMAN, THE MOST UNTRUSTWORTHY OF BREEDS, BACK IN 1952

Well, for one, we didn't even exist until sometime in the 1970's, so

EVERYONE IN YOUR MEDIUM IS THE EXACT SAME TO ME

That doesn't make any sense!

Tell that to Buzz.

Greg Schiano is a young, successful coach who's turned down offers from Miami and Michigan the past two years. Joe Paterno is a thousand years old and is widely rumored to be entering his final season as Penn State's head coach. Schiano was a Penn State defensive backs coach back before he came to prominence as Miami's defensive coordinator. Add it all up and...

Barring a last-minute power struggle or change of heart, the source indicated that this will be Paterno's last season in Happy Valley, and that Penn State would move quickly after Schiano at season's end.

That's an internet sportsmag called The Phanatic that covers the sports of Philadelphia and environs. Though few have heard of them, they seem to be a relatively up-and-up lot and do feature a couple hundred thousand hits on their site counter. Take or leave that as you please.

Penn State blogs naturally go "urk!?!" at mention of this since Schiano appears to be the only truly attractive option available to Penn State should this be Joe Paterno's last year of vaguely guiding actual Penn State head coach Tom Bradley, nominally the defensive coordinator.

Color this guy skeptical, since the Phanatic's article is explicitly couched in anonymity and vagueness. From appearances, coaching searches are always but always fiascoes. Even if the Phanatic's source is Graham Spanier himself, the situation will change a thousand times before a new Penn State coach is named.

Evidence? Last year during the Michigan coaching search a highly reliable tipster told me Michigan had come to an agreement with its new head coach: Greg Schiano.

Quote the Penn State coach last week:

"To be frank with you, I don't know what the reasons are not to have a playoff," Paterno said during a speaking appearance in Pittsburgh. "You can talk about missing class and all that kind of stuff, (yet) you see basketball go on forever. You have a lot of bogus excuses.

Now, far be it from me to lay into one of college football's most decorated coaches, but Joe Paterno's argument itself is bogus. First of all, he cites exactly one argument against a playoff here, that of the game becoming a two-semester event and taking student-athletes away from the classroom.

I don't personally buy into that argument either, since there are much better ones against a playoff. But it isn't "bogus". I hate to bring up that childhood example but it fits so we'll run it: if your friends go and jump off a bridge, do you jump as well? The answer is of course not. Just because college basketball's jumped off that bridge doesn't justify college football doing the same.

Furthermore, Paterno's being patently dishonest. Most of the time I see public arguments against a playoff, they have little to do with the academics. Even the conference commissioners are starting to cite other quite solid reasons besides the academics charge.

Examples? After the jump.