Regarding Succession

Some interesting quotes from the players:

"He'll be here, that's what I think," quarterback Daryll Clark said. "I don't think he's going anywhere. A lot of people who say [negative things] are people speaking from the outside. They really don't know what's going to happen.

"I feel that if something was going to happen, Joe would have probably addressed it already. He hasn't said anything."

Now the players standing behind Joe and saying that he will probably coach forever is nothing new, but at least we know they are in the dark as well.

"We see it every day in the papers," said center A.Q. Shipley from Moon High School. "We can't do anything about it. He's our coach this year, and whatever's going to happen after that, no one really knows.

"He's done a lot for this place. I think they owe it to him to keep him. I think he deserves to be here."

A little defensive. And again, saying "no one really knows" what will happen is 2009 is fairly clueless for one of the 2008 captains.

Fellow caption:

"[Coach Paterno] is going to go out on his own terms," Connor said. "He's been around long enough to know if he's ready for it or not. He's got a bundle of bowl wins and he's had a lot of success here. I don't think he'll be run out."

Hmmmm....there was a time when I thought that this whole battle of the titans thing was overstated, but it's pretty clear that this is for real. For as much as Paterno appears to be keeping literally everyone out of the loop, the players do appear to realize things aren't all roses.

So what the hell already, right? Those with power met in DC this weekend to discuss non-football related issues. But, off the record for some reason, most agreed that Paterno was going to be brought up in the big room.