Jay Paterno: You know and love him as Penn State’s flailing offensive coordinator. Now he’s blogging in support of the Obama campaign, and…yeah, it’s not going so well. Bad idea from the very beginning. Is it too late to vote for Mike Gravel?
Freedom of speech, indeed.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Notre Dame shill Tom Lemming combine forces to ask the question, “Has JoePa Lost His Edge?”. I’ll give you two guesses as to their conclusion.
“They’re not dominating Pennsylvania anymore. They’ve only got one of the top five kids [offensive lineman Eric Shrive] in the state so far [for 2009], whereas before they would always get four of the top five.
“On top of that, Penn State’s not even winning Western Pennsylvania these days. [Pitt coach] Dave Wannstedt has dominated that area the last three years.”
And yes, that’s working out really well for Pitt so far. Meanwhile, Greg Schiano is piecing together a legitimately impressive class at Rutgers. Penn State recruitniks have Schiano’s recruiting success somewhere between “hey, he’s doing a good job, good for him!” and “OH MY GOD WE’RE GONNA DIE”.
Adam Taliaferro is still the man, mang.
Former PSU wide receiver Chris Bell will be slicing through defenses for Norfolk State next season.
Bell says he’s ready to make a fresh start.
“I was sitting in history class the other day going over Socrates and Plato, reading, ‘No human intentionally tries to do wrong,’ ” the junior said as he prepared for 7-on-7 drills. “I rebelled and I acted out there, but I also learned a lot.
…
“I don’t have anything bad to say about Penn State,” Bell said. “Being at Penn State, you have to do a lot of things. I think I was only doing about 75 percent of it. I would go to class, do my work, but really, I wasn’t interested. Because I wasn’t interested, I wasn’t motivated.”
Well, admitting it is the first step.
Strangely, one of the buried stories of the 2008 season is Derrick Williams’ last chance at collegiate glory. Some look at his career and say he’s been a disappointment, but that seems a bit unfair. He’s been a very good player, recruited his butt off for PSU after committing a few years ago, and has been exactly what all Penn State fans want from their players. He’s done everything we could’ve reasonably asked of him, given the difficulties at quarterback the past few seasons and the fact that his offensive coordinator is somehow more qualified to be a political blogger than an offensive coordinator.
Northwestern’s radio station has a PSU preview. A little light, but accurate.
Todd Blackledge, God enthusiast.
10 responses so far ↓
FireJayPa // June 23, 2008 at 9:44 am
Got to love all of the Anti Jay Paterno people coming together for a common cause.
Woody Hayes posting from the dead was great!
SweepTheLeg // June 23, 2008 at 10:37 am
that is the funniest thing I ever read…seriously
FireJayPa // June 23, 2008 at 10:53 am
@2
I know the guy that posted as Woody Hayes..I was talking to him on AIM right before he posts it and he goes to me “Wait until you see this gem….”
I refreshed and I thought soda was going to be going all over the monitor….
jd // June 23, 2008 at 11:29 am
While it may be funny, and most of it well deserved, i have mixed feelings about the comments on the Obama sight.
On the one hand, some of the comments depict us as a bunch of football insane neandertals. Which, admittedly, we can be, but I just don’t like abusing a serious political site for amusement and/or program opinions.
and yes, i know Joe openly campaigned for Republican interests. Don’t really agree with that, either.
On the other, I just really hate how much Jay tarnishes the program with his presence at so many levels.
ageing Lion // June 23, 2008 at 12:12 pm
The Penn State fans Greg Schiano paradox: If he can’t recruit top talent, stealing some from Penn State then is he really good enough to be considered for the head coach position at Penn State?
If he’s our next HC then he will need to recruit a notch higher
getting recruits that would have gone to OSU, Michigan and Notre Dame.
M1EK // June 23, 2008 at 1:08 pm
It’s so frustrating. Of all the things he could have learned from Joe Back In The Day, why didn’t he learn how to develop players instead of how to screw around in politics?
Or, another way to look at it, of all the ways he could diverge from Current Joe, why on earth did he pick politics instead of something useful?
PSUgirl // June 24, 2008 at 9:24 am
I think that Jay learned everything he knows from his dad - but he lacks the “he just wins” gene -
Joe Paterno is legendary (in my mind) as someone who has under utilized, re-directed, and mis-matched talent - His teams (okay maybe 1994 - but even then, that team could have been even better) were successful not because they were slick, precision machines lousy with freakish talent used to its utmost potential - but because they were a well prepared, tenacious team that played with heart.
We fans have, for years, hollered at Joe from the stands for his personnel choices, preference to upperclassmen, bias for kids whose mothers were excellent cooks -
M1EK // June 24, 2008 at 11:36 am
Yes, but the players still developed - didn’t regress, I mean, unlike Morelli (and many other players during the Dark Years like the WRs that couldn’t catch). They may have been mis-applied, but they got better and looked smarter as they got older, for the most part.
PSUgirl // June 24, 2008 at 1:13 pm
we’ll just have to agree to disagree on that one. Joe has a long history of ‘over-coaching’ that is pretty well documented - unless a quarterback had sheer natural talent (collins), determination (shaffer/fusina) or intelligence (blackledge) - I can’t remember a PSU quarterback who was actually “better” when he left school. They were probably more fit, more educated, etc - but I can’t say they got “better”.
M1EK // June 24, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Well, now you’re restricting to just QBs, which is historically not our strong suit - and then you also excluded all of the good QBs we had! Collins developed quite a bit, by the way. I’m too young to remember for sure about Blackledge; but Shaffer developed in the sense that he learned how to manage the game better as he got older.
We used to send off WRs to the NFL who were extremely competent possession receivers - good hands, good route-runners. Then, all of the sudden, we forgot how to catch footballs in the Dark Ages. Similar arguments could be made with the kind of running back we used to send to the NFL (not the every-down backs; the 3rd-down/fullback guys).
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