The Penn State Football Show

This is great news for Penn State. They really avoided what surely would have been a big blow. You have to wonder what was said/promised to him for the future when he met with Joe. He claims nothing was promised, but I find that hard to believe. He was told something that kept him at Penn State, he just won't say what it is.

Here is a good article about his decision to stay:

http://www.pennlive.com/pennstatefootball/patriotnews/index.ssf?/base/sports/1232084404301790.xml&coll=1

Deon is receiving great reviews from all-star practice at the East-West Shrine game:

http://draftguys.com/index.php/articles/1/2009_shrine_game_practice_report_day_one_east/

Lots of good points in there Drew. In fact, I was pretty much going to say the same exact thing about LJ Sr. Losing him would be really tough. As you pointed out, he is a great recruiter, but he is also a tremendous d-line coach.

Look at our d-lines the last 5 years. Nobody in the Big Ten has been able to run on Penn State, even when Penn State was struggling. Lawrence Maroney, nation's leading rusher at the time, comes to Happy Valley: 22 carries for 48 yards. Same for Chris Wells and Javon Ringer this year. Look at the guys he has sent to the NFL: Jay Alford, Tamba Hali, Jimmy Kennedy, Anthony Adams, Michael Haynes. The list goes on.

He would be sorely missed, and I agree with your exact plan: Name Bradley the head coach-in-waiting and LJ Sr. the next defensive coordinator. This would certainly get him to stay. The problem then is Vanderlinden might bounce, but I think it is inevitable that either he or Johnson, whoever is not the next d-coordinator, will look to go elsewhere. If it were up to me, I would choose Johnson over Vanderlinden.

Joe loves the university and has done so many wonderful things for Penn State. It would be in the best interest of the university to name the successor right now before things start to fall apart. I have said before how excited I am about the defense next year. But, if LJ Sr. goes, and Maybin leaves early, and so does Evans, things could be not nearly as promising as they were two weeks ago. Keep in mind, if LJ Sr. does decide to leave, it would obviously have a huge impact on the decisions of Maybin, Evans, and Odrick. They do have to decide by Thursday though. Right now it's looking like Maybin is gone - but he hasn't officially said that yet. Odrick looks like he's coming back, and I have no clue what to expect with Evans. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

In regards to Obama, I'm siding with him on this one. I've seen him say a few times that he has more important things to deal with and can't really waste his time on the BCS. So it's not like he's going around parading for a playoff and spending hours formulating a system. I think it's more that he had that one interview where he mentioned it as the number one issue to change in sports, and now reporters continually bring it up to him because it's something that many Americans are interested in. At first I too thought it was kind of silly for the President to even be discussing the issue, but the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. While sports might seem like a trivial matter, when you look at it from the business perspective and how college football is letting financial interests completely control the way the entire business is run, it becomes a more pressing issue. Also, I've heard a number of cases of attorneys looking into the BCS being a violation of various anti-trust laws and things of that sort. We will see what comes out of it, but I don't have much problem with the President merely acknowledging that is an issue.

And believe it or not, I actually did not tune in to the Va Tech-Cincy game. I enjoyed that shot at me though. Haha.

I'm going to sort of throw some things out there the way Pete did with things that have been bothering me for a while now.

We'll start with the state of college football. The BCS was obviously a step in the right direction but you will never truly satisfy the public. People will complain and look for a better system all the time and you will just get more arguing over conference strength and teams getting byes and such. I hear President-elect Obama calling for a playoff system and to that I say "F*** off!" This is not your world. There are bigger problems at hand than college football; none really come to mind but I'm sure they are out there. This needs to be decided among university presidents, athletic directors, and coaches with no influence given to sports writers or sponsors. The football will sell itself. If Gaylord Hotels wants to pull their sponsorship of a third rate bowl I say good riddance. Slingin Sammy Baugh never played in the AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic. And for that matter I'm sick of seeing athletes walk away with thousands of dollars worth of electronics just for showing up. This wondeful game is losing its direction very fast. I'm just happy Penn State is a "traditional" program. Eventhough I doubt 10% of the players or 15% of the student body and alums could tell you who was the head coach before Joe Paterno. If you are heading for the new tab button and the google search bar now shame on you. On to Penn State...

I see Larry Johnson is tabbed as a top candidate for defensive coordinator at Illinois. This is a direct result of Paterno staying on. Not only is Larry Johnson a phenomenal coach, he is perhaps our best recruiter. He has lead the recruit for Jelani Jenkins. These recruits are jittery as bunny rabbits and I imagine thats all he needed to hear to scratch Penn State off his list. I'm not asking Paterno to retire. I was actually somewhat happy with his re-signing. But I think we could do what so many universities are doing now with the "head coach in waiting" title. Name Bradley your next head coach to help recruiting and tell Johnson he will take over as defensive coordinator. Good guys will not stay position coaches for long. Brian Norwood left and we replaced him with Kermit Buggs, some guy, who to the best of my knowledge played sparingly in his time and had been pushing paper in the front office for a while, and our weakest spot this year was pass defense. Small wonder.

I'd like to finish by saying Utah is this year's national champion. Hands down bar none. If this were any other league or sport, they would go first to record: Utah wins, head to head: no matchup, common opponents: one- and Utah dispacthed of them way easier than Florida. This is an absolute shame. If they do stick with the BCS, the most immediate change that can take place to help is to take away the automatic bid for the big east and acc and give it to the mountain west and the WAC. Did anyone even watch Virgina Tech-Cinci besides Pete? I mean who cares?

So now all thats left is for Mel Kiper and Todd McShay to ruin so many young man's lives by using no information whatsoever to make up their big boards and mis-lead kids into thinking they'll be millionares. Hats off to you gentlemen, I hope you both die.

There are lots of rumors that Maybin has decided to enter the 09 draft. I really didn't think he would do this, even after people were projecting him to go top five. It still isn't official, but it is sounding like he's gone, which really surprises me.

I think he would have benefited by another year in college. He only started for one year, and his weight is really going to be a problem at the next level. I think he can be succesful as a situational pass rusher, but I don't see him being an every down player in the NFL. Is a team really going to spend a top 10 pick on someone that is not an every down player? I wouldn't think so. McShay has Maybin in his top five. I'd be surprised if he goes in the top 15. I'm sure his combine numbers will be impressive, so that could help. He is the quickest d-lineman I've ever seen. But he's also the smallest.

The reason I am most unhappy about this, of course, is it hurts Penn State next season. He is a great pass rusher and would have been a key contributor in one of hte best defenses in the country. Penn State will be fine without him, as long as Maurice Evans comes back. There are people saying he will enter the draft too. I think that too would be a mistake, after such a dissapointing season this year. But you never know what factors he is basing his decision on. If he comes back, PSU will be fine at DE with Jerome Hayes returning, and the Crawford kid who looks like a good talent. If Evans goes, end could go from the biggest strength on the team to a big question mark.

I know you all will agree with me on this one:

Enough with this "Football Subdivision" bullcrap! What is that? What in the world was wrong with simply calling them Division I, Division II, etc? Can anyone tell me what DI is now called? What is IAA now called? I honestly have no clue. I think DI is FBS which I believe stands for "Football Subdivision?" If so, what does that mean? It all makes no sense and just makes things confusing and stupid. No reason for that change either.

I figured I'd use this blog to express some of the issues I have with the current college football system.

I've never really voiced much of an opinion on the BCS in the past. While people have been making a big stink about it for years, my stance was always "Yeah, it has it's flaws, but its 500 times better than the previous system."

People seem to forget that before the BCS, there wasn't even a national championship game! The conferences would send their teams to whichever bowls they were assigned, so the #1 team could wind up playing the #17 team. It was pretty ridiculous. People now make the argument "How can you crown a national champion without having a playoff?!" Well, at least they have a national championship game now. They used to crown a champion without even playing a national championship game.

So, in that regard, I never was very against the BCS. Until now. This season has made it more clear than ever that a playoff is necessary. The fiasco in the Big 12 was ridiculous, not to mention the fact that Utah went 13-0 with some very impressive wins, and doesn't get a shot for the national championship. Rick Reilly wrote a great column on why Utah should be the champs, check it out if you get a chance at ESPN.com.

Anyway, I think a playoff would be much better than the current bowl system. College football in my opinion has by far the best and most exciting regular season of any sport, but probably the worst post-season. Some teams don't show up in their bowl games because they are unhappy to be at that particular bowl, and it throws everything off. Besides, if you can't win it all, what exactly are you playing for?

The thing that bothers me the most about the BCS, though, is the fact that the entire reason it exists is money. Think about it: how many people do you hear on TV complaining about the BCS? How many people do you hear defending the BCS? Certainly not many, if any at all. Coaches, analysts, players, virtually EVERYONE agrees that there needs to be a change made. So why isn't there one? The Conference Presidents and University Presidents with all of the money and all of the power won't allow it. The BCS system allows the major universities in the major conferences to clean up financially. They fear that a change, while better for the sport and the athletes themselves, would harm them financially. So they won't sign on to do it.

To me, that's ridiculous. One of the things that makes college athletics so special and unique, is that it's supposed to be void of the distractions of money. The players are all amateurs, and more importantly, students. Unlike the pros, they aren't playing for millions of dollars and signing huge contracts and getting various endorsement deals. So, if this is one of the aspects of college football that is promoted to make it seem wholesome and genuine, then how can you totally contradict yourself by sacrificing the benefit of the game and the players for the sake of the monetary interests of the universities? It really bothers me that, in this sense, college football has become more of a business than a sport. I hope these conference presidents and higher ups are exposed and a new system is put in place that will truly benefit the game.

On to less important matters that still irk me:

Why does the NCAA feel the need to continually mess with the rules in crazy ways to attempt to make the games go faster? I hate this for SO many reasons: 1. The changes they have made so far, don't make any sense and don't fit in with the game of football. Remember that dumb rule two years ago that Bielema exposed against Penn State where the clock started when the ball was kicked? If not, let me refresh your memory: Two seasons ago, there were all these new clock rules. Well, Bret Bielema, head coach of Wisconsin, did his homework, studied the rule changes, and found a blatant flaw in them. He strategically used this flaw to run out the clock at the end of the first half in a game against Penn State by purposely running off-sides before each time they kicked off. Since the clock started as soon as the ball was kicked, about seven to ten seconds were run off the clock by the time the kick return had been made. Also, keep in mind since the kickoff team was running offsides, they would get a huge headstart, and prevent any succesful return by tackling the return man immediately. Then, they would be penalized for the offsides and forced to kick again, which ran off another 7-10 seconds. They did this about three or four times until the half came to an end, preventing Penn State from even attempting a drive at the end of the half.

Many Penn State fans have complained about this move by Bielema. I have gone back and forth on how I feel about it. From a coaching perspective, it was a brilliant move, because it ruined any hope Penn State had of getting a score in before half-time. That was the intent, and it worked. You have to at least applaud him for actually reading the rulebook and realizing this flaw. No other coach in the country had done so. Not to mention, by doing what he did, he was able to bring this issue to the attention of the NCAA, and that rule was changed this season. I don't know if that was his intent or not, but if he did intend to expose the flaw to the NCAA, he was able to do that and bring about the necessary change. (Although he could have simply called them and told them.)

The thing I didn't like about the move was that it put Penn State's players in danger. Since the coverage men were getting a head start, they were right in the return man's face each time he caught the ball, and he took some big hits as a result. In my opinion, that is bush league. If you want to expose this flaw, or even use it to your advantage, that's one thing, but do so in such a way that doesn't risk injury to the opponent.

Anyway, that was a very long rant and I have strayed from my point. My point is this: I think it's absolutely pathetic that the NCAA made a rule change with such a blatant flaw, and didn't realize it. That should never happen. They should review everything very carefully to prevent something like that. It just makes them look careless. Rules should not be put in place on year and then changed the next year.
College football has been around forever. In my opinion, if you are going to be making a change in the rulebook, it should be for something that is absoultely essential and necessary. There should not be little tweaks each year like there have been the past two seasons.

This year, the whole business of the clock continuing to run when the ballcarrier goes out of bounds really bothered me. I mean, that is part of football: if you get out of bounds, the clock stops. Period. You can't just make that the case for the last two minutes of the half. This makes the game go by way too quickly. Teams don't even have much of a chance to make a comeback with these rules because the game goes by so quickly. I don't really know why they want to speed up the game, it only makes it worse. They weren't too long before, in my opinion. I hope after this season ends (tonight) they will go back and review that rule and take it out.

OK that's all I'm going to gripe about for now. More to come later. Your thoughts?