Replies to post #7918 on Collegiate Sports (NCAA)

[BullNBear52]

If Michigan cracks the AP 25 she'll be posting 24x7.

[HoosierHoagie]

Well since I have been told on numerous occasions that I do indeed live in Hell on Earth, I can attest to the fact that it has not, I repeat NOT frozen over. Although I will tell you that on my run I noticed it was a tad cooler then it has been. Now when Ksquared has something nice to say about RR..Baby I'm putting on the Parka...Good Morning NLionguy whats in line for PSU this weekend??

[ksquared]

Contrary to what Paterno says,
the Lions are in for an easy victory this coming Saturday viewable on national TV. Ahh... the ignominy of it all.

I'll be looking for you NLionGuy. You'll be the one in the white t-shirt, right?

I also disagree with his assessment of Rod-reek-ez. The guy stinks. I doubt he'll be able to recruit anybody good for next year. He can't beat Toledo and he's destroyed all Michigan football tradition. Grrr.

(Forgive me if this was posted before. I've been away. No time for IHub or to properly catch up.)

A Throwback Season for Paterno
By GEORGE VECSEY
Published: October 15, 2008

Derrick Williams has three touchdowns on kick or punt returns this season, which is yet another reason Penn State is undefeated going into the Michigan game on Saturday.

But Williams never moved faster than he did on Tuesday, when somebody complimented him on the earrings glittering on both sides of his head.

“Oh, man, I forgot to take them off,” he said, his alarm registering through the airwaves during Penn State’s weekly conference call.

“I’ll take them off right now,” Williams said. “I’m so sorry.” The interviewer apologized for calling attention to the earrings, hoping he would not get Williams in any trouble.

“It’s good that you did,” Williams said, adding, “If he looks at a picture, I’ll probably get in trouble.”

The “he” was Joseph Vincent Paterno, going on 82, who has been working at Penn State since 1950, during the administration of Harry S. Truman, and now coaches young men for whom William Jefferson Clinton is ancient history.

Paterno is having a throwback season, with the Nittany Lions winning all seven games so far. He professes great respect and typical coach fear of Michigan. This is no time to let down, Paterno has been saying.

“He doesn’t change rules,” explained Williams, a senior from Greenbelt, Md. “If guys before did it, we’re no better than they were. We can’t go changing things.”

Actually, they have changed some things at Penn State, after more than 40 players faced 163 criminal charges since 2002, according to a recent report by ESPN’s “Outside the Lines.” Twenty-seven players were convicted or pleaded guilty to a total of 45 charges, and many left the campus.

The emphasis on deportment and improved recruiting has produced an unbeaten team for a coach without a contract for next season. There is almost no blueprint for going out gracefully for venerable coaches like Paterno or Bobby Bowden of Florida State, who are invaluable for their universities’ brands as long as they can talk.

The best possibility for the octogenarian in Happy Valley is to go undefeated, win a national championship or at least win the Big Ten title — all of which could depend on the game at Ohio State a week from Saturday.

•

Having already survived overt suggestions from his administration that he retire, after Penn State went a combined 7-16 in 2003 and ’04, Paterno essentially shrugs off the dreaded R-word like Clint Eastwood tersely brushing off defeatism. Paterno seems to know it’s a helpful device to look, sound and act like a grumpy old man.

Often coaching from the press box this season because of a sore leg, he doesn’t deny that he might need surgery, perhaps a hip replacement, after the season. He accompanied his comments the other day with fits of coughing that sounded dreadful over the telephone.

After trouncing Wisconsin on Saturday, 48-7, Paterno told his players not to be giddy because Michigan has beaten Penn State in their last nine meetings. On Tuesday it was suggested to Paterno that perhaps he was reinforcing negative information for his lads.

“You tell me,” he said, in his best still-Brooklyn-after-all-these-years accent. “I don’t know why I said it. It was after the game. I just wanted to get things in focus, try to make sure that we didn’t walk out of there with our heads in the clouds. Just said, ‘Hey.’ ”

Cough and all, he sounded like himself, Joe from Ebbets Field. He gruffly warned people to throw out Michigan’s 13-10 upset loss to Toledo last week. He told how he felt deprived if he couldn’t bark at his assistant coaches every day or two.

He declined to promote his quarterback, Daryll Clark, for the Heisman Trophy because, he said, he has seen other deserving players of his not receive the award over the decades. And besides, who has time to watch all the other players, anyway?

•

Finally, Paterno was asked about the criticism of Rich Rodriguez, the new coach at Michigan, who has a 2-4 record.

“Hey, don’t pay any attention to what’s in the paper,” he said. “Don’t let them affect your decisions. There’s a whole lot of people pecking away at you. The Web-site mob. They don’t do anything but criticize. And you can’t succumb to that. They don’t sign their names. Just stay the course, make believers of them, as Rich will do. He’s an awfully good football coach.”

When Michigan comes back, Paterno said, the Web-site mob “will be the first to jump on the bandwagon.”

Continuing in the same vein, Paterno said: “I always tell people, Churchill saved the Western world from dictators, and when they kicked him out, he was asked about gratitude, and he said, ‘Gratitude doesn’t exist in politics, only in history.’ It’s the same way in football.”

He doesn’t make it sound like a lot of fun — except that his team is undefeated. He turned back the retirement posse when his teams were rolling up the defeats and the violations. If he could turn in a monster season, Paterno just might have his leg fixed and tell the next posse, “Fuhgeddaboutit.”

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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/sports/ncaafootball/16vecsey.html?_r=1&ref=sports&oref=slogin