Some tidbits from around the internets:

Al Golden is getting ready for the 2008 season, but it’s much more than gameplanning:

Want to know what he’s doing at virtually any moment, from Jan. 9 to Aug. 20? It’s all there, in black and white, a full 34 pages’ worth, in an outline titled, “So You Want To Be A Football Coach!” Right down to interviews with members of the media. There are days that start with 3:30 a.m. wake-up calls. And some that almost never end.

Nothing is left to chance. For him, there’s no other way.

“What’s the difference between trying to see seven or eight schools a day and running for governor, for God’s sake?” he asked. “That’s essentially what we’re doing.

“We’ve probably met 1,000 people in a week. Everybody, you name it. We’re in high schools saying hello to 50 people. It’s not like we’re coming in the side door, and leaving like Elvis. We’re going there to work.”

It’s about visibility. And selling. A university. A philosophy. A commitment.

“It comes down to people,” Golden said. “It’s about trust, cultivating relationships. When we came in, we had so many ties to this area. And we’ve continued to make inroads. There was a disenchantment [with Temple]. I think high school coaches felt disenfranchised. You have to know your customer. But now we’ve reached so many people, and they’re going back and telling their people, ‘Hey, do you know what’s going on at Temple?’ If a kid’s engaged by that, then we can proceed. But first we meet with the principal, guidance counselors and coaches, before we ever get to the prospect. All we needed was the conduit, to drive us from Point A to Point B.

“The difference now is, there’s a definite product [to offer]. If the university hadn’t changed, we couldn’t be doing this. Look at all the things that are taking place here, in terms of infrastructure. That’s all it takes. It’s a cooperative effort.”

I’ll hold to my opinion that Golden offers the highest potential of any future PSU coaching candidate out there — at least among candidates that a normal person would consider realistic at this time.  It would be a risk, but at the end of the day, is it really any more of a risk than Greg Schiano? 

Speaking of realistic, Joe Paterno is working to reassure recruits that Penn State is more than just the guy in charge of the football program.

Paterno said his advice to the recruits is simple: Take a look at the whole school.

“Look at Penn State,” he said. “Look at its history. … Look at the enthusiasm of the program. Look at the academic support. And, you’re going to play on a good football team. and you’re going to be coached well.

“Don’t put me in the equation beyond what it should be.”

Paterno said he doesn’t think he has lost a recruit with that approach.

“Take a look around at the people who are here and take a look around at the things that have made Penn State special. Because we think we are something special.”

In all honesty, this is exactly how the program should be sold right now.  Everytime the “Joe will be gone in two years” meme surfaces, knock it down with the notion that any coach could be gone in two years.  It seems obvious to us, but perhaps it’s not so obvious to a high school senior.

Paterno will also be making an appearance as the keynote speaker at a dinner to benefit the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs.

Yes, that title blows my mind, too.

In player news, Brent Carter still isn’t sure if he’s a running back or safety.

For now, Carter is a tailback. He was recruited out of Pottsgrove as a running back, but was briefly moved to safety, only to return to the offensive backfield midseason last year because of numbers.

He practiced at tailback all spring, but coach Joe Paterno isn’t sure if Carter will stay there.

“I’m not quite sure where we’re going to play him,” Paterno said. “But I think he’s a good football player, and I don’t want to screw him up. … So I’m going to keep him at tailback for a while.”

On the depth chart, Carter is behind Evan Royster and Stephfon Green.

Like Royster, the 6-foot-2, 211-pound Carter is better as an in-between-the-tackles back. In the regular season finale against Michigan State last November he was pressed into late duty after injuries and gained 23 yards on three carries.

“I prefer tailback,” Carter said. “But if [Paterno] wants to move me, I want to do what’s best for the team.”

You’ll recall that Carter appeared late in the Michigan State game in an emergency capacity, and would’ve been immediately enshrined into the Shelley Hammonds Hall Of Fame if the Penn State offensive coaching staff didn’t completely abandon the running game on the final drive.

Finally, this seems like a bad idea:

A Penn State student accused of threatening to put a professor who gave him a B- “in a wheelchair” is now facing misdemeanor charges, according to a press release issued Tuesday.

Apostalo M. Tsirogiannis, listed as a finance major in the Penn State directory, was charged Tuesday with terroristic threats and harassment and arraigned in front of Magisterial District Justice Jonathan Grine, according to the release. Tsirogiannis is free on $10,000 unsecured bail.

Tsirogiannis, who told police he believed he should have received higher than a B-, allegedly threatened violence against visiting professor Lukas Roth if he did not raise Tsirogiannis’ grade.

“If I see this on my [eLion] account, I swear to god I am going to [expletive] put you in a wheelchair when I see you,” the e-mail reads, according to the press release.

What ever happened to the old-school ransom note style of threatening?  Much more menacing, with the added bonus of it not coming from your personal e-mail account.  Then again, this genius would still screw it up.

I believe you can now upload a “gravatar” for use here and other sites who employ such plugins.

It’s a little awkward at first, but you can change the size of the image by using the little slide bar underneath the area of the image to be cropped.

Do we really need to go through this again?

MGoBlog:

Please. You’d think Penn State fans’ righteous indignation about Rich Rodriguez’s recruiting would be severely blunted by the fact that PSU just yoinked Maryland cornerback Darrell Givens out from underneath Ohio State’s nose. Not so much.

Black Shoe Diaries:

I’m sure that certain people who swear there is no gentleman’s agreement between Big Ten coaches will claim that we just violated it. Whatever. It’s pretty obvious since Rodriguez joined the conference that anything goes, so when in Rome…

Weak, man. A little rhetorical flourish to preemptively dismiss the obvious: there never was any “gentleman’s agreement” and Penn State fans are full of crap. Yeah, “anything goes” since Rodriguez showed up, which is why the very post BSD linked has no fewer than four examples of intraconference poaching the year before Rodriguez showed up.

Give it up, guys. This, like JayPa’s efforts to recruit skill position players, is getting pathetic.

I jumped into the mess during the last round, though damned if I can actually locate the post.  It’s very, very unlikely that Rodriguez’s arrival in Ann Arbor and his Trotwood swindle* suddenly jolted the rest of the conference’s head coaches to life, forcing them to uncharacteristically abandon their morals and recruit kids who had verballed to other Big Ten programs.  It simply can’t be true, and even if it was true, does a conference that features guys like Jim Tressel, Ron Zook, and Rich Rodriguez (not to mention guys like Charlie Weis lurking nearby) seem like the type of place where the high road is the best option? 

If there’s a gentlemen’s agreement to not recruit otherwise committed players, it’s only in the minds of the coaches losing the recruiting battles.  It’s 2008, which means that recruiting has been a dirty game for approximately 50 years.  The lesson here?  Sack up and work harder than the other guy — if your coaching staff can’t accomplish that, it’s their (and your) problem.  In a world where recruiting analysts are constantly harassing recruits in order to break stories about commitments, not to mention being bombarded with calls, letters, text messages, Nick Saban webcam requests, etc., it’s a relatively safe bet that most verbal commitments before New Year’s Day are soft.  Remember, they’re 17 and 18 year old kids.  Despite the overabundance of media attention they receive, they still want to please and receive approval.

Personally, I don’t want my coaching staff to write off kids like that until it’s absolutely clear that they’re headed elsewhere.  You can’t celebrate a decommitment when it benefits your program and assail the entire process when you’re on the short end.

* - Shaw’s case is a strange one, in that he told the Penn State coaches on the morning of Signing Day that he was coming to Penn State.  Then he suddenly changed his mind, along with Roy Roundtree, his high school teammate that was headed to Purdue.  Something weird happened at Trotwood H.S. that day.  Illegal?  Who knows.  I haven’t seen any evidence of it.  Weird?  Yeah, very much so, but when you’re on the losing end, it’s a short step from “weird” to “suspicious”.

Jokes aside, if you’re looking for a few extra karma points, consider participation in the Swindle Industries Charity Bowl over at EDSBS. Make sure that Penn State’s goodwill continues to be recognized and lauded throughout the known universe.

(Thanks to Adam for the tip.)

You’ve likely seen it already, but…Bill O’Reilly going bonkers:

And while I’m here, some evangelical Christian leaders are so enthusiastic about a John McCain presidency, they’re willing to take their balls and go home until 2012:

Robert Novak seems to think that some right-wing evangelicals may swing toward Barack Obama — and that Mike Huckabee, the former Republican governor of Arkansas and former presidential candidate, could be one of them.

Mr. Novak says that “an experienced, credible activist in Christian politics” told him that in a private conversation Mr. Huckabee “had embraced the concept that an Obama presidency might be what the American people deserve.” Mr. Novak says that the report “fits what has largely been a fringe position among evangelicals: that the pain of an Obama presidency is in keeping with the Bible’s prophecy.”

But what does Chuck Norris think? Finally, you stay classy, Pennsyltucky!

Victoria Switzer, a retired social studies teacher, was on phone-bank duty one night during the Pennsylvania primary campaign. One night was all she could take: “It wasn’t pretty.” She made 60 calls to prospective voters in Susquehanna County, her home county, which is 98 percent white. The responses were dispiriting. One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn’t possibly vote for Obama and concluded: “Hang that darky from a tree!”

Documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy, the daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy, said she, too, came across “a lot of racism” when campaigning for Obama in Pennsylvania. One Pittsburgh union organizer told her he would not vote for Obama because he is black, and a white voter, she said, offered this frank reason for not backing Obama: “White people look out for white people, and black people look out for black people.”

It’s sad but true — this isn’t particularly shocking, and certainly fits the trend of Obama’s difficulties in Appalachia.

It feels like the late first round of the NFL draft, when the teams start hammering one particular position for six picks in a row.  Only there’s one team — Your Penn State Nittany Lions.  Another defensive back has joined Penn State’s recruiting class, and once again, he’s from the same high school as a current PSU star:

On Sunday night, Scout.com cited multiple sources in breaking the news that cornerback Derrick Thomas of Eleanor Roosevelt High in Greenbelt, Md., committed to Penn State.

Thomas confirmed the report in a text message to FightOnState.com early Monday morning.

The 6-foot, 175-pounder is the third DB to announce for the Lions in as many days and fourth secondary player overall to pick Penn State.

Rivals has his speed at 4.49, with a vertical leap of 37 inches. They haven’t evaluated Thomas yet; Scout has him at three stars. Eleanor Roosevelt is the former high school of Derrick Williams. You may be familiar with his work.

I must say, there’s been a rather remarkable string of good recruiting news. Hard to remember the last time we’ve enjoyed sustained positive momentum like this.
 

At a Nittany Lion Club fundraiser in King Of Prussia, Joe Paterno tipped his hand a bit regarding the quarterback job:

Daryll Clark and Pat Devlin are the candidates, and the two seemed comparable at the Blue-White game. The coach doesn’t expect to make a decision until the preseason, and Paterno hasn’t ruled out an occasional platoon, but it’s looking more likely as if Clark will get the initial nod.

“Obviously, people got him ahead of the pack, and I think it probably ought to be that way,” Paterno said. “But Devlin and [probable third-stringer Paul] Cianciola are both good football players.

Not an outright endorsement, but it’s close…with the possibility of Paterno’s comments being semi-intended as a motivational tactic for Devlin.

This one, from ESPN.com’s Mark Schlabach, has Penn State at #25.

25. Penn State Nittany Lions

Penn State suffered a big blow during spring practice when All-America candidate Sean Lee tore the ACL in his right knee, but 16 other starters are expected back. Quarterback Daryll Clark should be more mobile than departed starter Anthony Morelli and there’s a boatload of talented receivers coming back. Road games at Ohio State and Wisconsin are tough tests.

However, look at the teams Penn State is ranked behind:

#1 Ohio State
#16 Illinois
#18 Wisconsin
#24 Michigan State

Oh, and #19 Pittsburgh.

Don’t worry. Here are Schlabach’s Big Ten predictions for last season:

1. The Wisconsin-Michigan winner takes the Big Ten title: “Both teams will be unbeaten going into their Nov. 10 showdown at Camp Randall Stadium. The Badgers’ biggest scare will come at Penn State on Oct. 13, and they’ll squeak out a win at Ohio State on Nov. 3. The Wolverines will survive early-season shootouts against Oregon and Penn State, then the defense will hit its stride.”

2. Iowa will bounce back: “…Iowa will suffer early-season losses at Wisconsin and Penn State. But the Hawkeyes will rebound to win their last six games and finish 10-2. Coach Kirk Ferentz will become a hot commodity again for a job in the NFL.” I’m fairly sure this did not happen.
3. Joe Paterno will coach again in 2008: “The Nittany Lions will lose at Michigan and against Wisconsin, but they’ll finish 10-2 and remain in the Big Ten title chase until the end.”

4. Indiana will play in a bowl game: Okay, okay. But they needed this in the very last minute of the season to become bowl-eligible.

5. Minnesota will be better than Michigan State: “The Gophers will go bowling in 2007.” Perhaps that would’ve been a better idea.