Americans And Their Damn Table Habbits [Joe Will Have None Of It]

Nothing pisses me off more than when someone tries to serve me ice cream on the same plate as something other than pie*. I'm not one to mix my shit up, JoePa agrees.

"I had a little bit of soul search I had to do when President Clinton was here the other day," Paterno said Saturday. He said he felt that perhaps he should welcome Clinton out of respect for his status as a former president.

But in the end, Paterno said, "I didn't want to get into that because of my situation, because I couldn't vote for either one of them because I'm a Republican." He later declined to say whether he was supporting Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee.

You see that? The ice cream was running toward the carrots but Joe made sure to put an end to that when things got dangerous. Good man.

Speaking of ice cream

During his visit, Bill Clinton also fondly recalled the "Peachy Paterno" ice cream at the school's creamery during an earlier visit to Happy Valley.

*I couldn't tell you when this has ever happened to me, but for some reason I have this terrible memory, maybe from a past life, of vanilla ice cream headed straight for something I should have eaten at least 15 minutes before desert was served.

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.

Why I Keep Doing This I Don't Know - Pryor

Yesterday, Dennis Dodd wrote a story filled with fluff and nonsense. Grass grew also. I'd love to give you a link but I declared a while back not to link MSM if it is bullshit and everything Dodd writes qualifies under that declaration.

One interesting line from his story:

Reitz also said that if Tom Bradley were named Penn State coach today, Pryor would be headed to Penn State. Bradley, the Lions defensive coordinator, has recruited Pryor intensely but fairly. One thing keeping Pryor from signing with Penn State is the uncertain future of Joe Paterno.

Reitz is Terrelle Pryor's football coach. Shout out to Dodd for telling us his interpretation of the comment instead of simply quoting the guy. No offense, Denis, but I trust your judgment like I trust the guy who told me olestra doesn't give people the shits.

Lets forget this is a Dodd story for a second , assume it is true (big assumption IMO), and figure out what it means.

One: That Penn State is NOT telling recruits that Bradley is the next coach

Some have speculated that this is being said to recruits, maybe it is, but from this non-quote it doesn't appear that's the case. If it was, Pryor would have already committed to PSU.

Two: Bradley is a kick ass recruiter

Everyone already knew this. Moving on...

Three: Paterno may be hurting recruiting

This seems to be contradictory, as Penn State was out until Paterno showed up at Pryor's house. Maybe Paterno shed some light on the post-Paterno era during that visit, but if we are going to assume the non-quote is true then we have to assume Paterno refuses to name the successor. Fair considering, technically, it's not his call.


Again, I can't stress enough how misguided this statement probably is. If Dodd was actually doing his job he would simply tell us what the coach said instead of paraphrasing. However, it makes you wonder if Penn State really should get moving on the post 2008 thing.

The Legend of Link, Recruiting Is Over Celebration

Now that we don't have to read about 17 year old boys on ESPN any more, I thought I'd celebrate with three of this week's best posts:

Orson is making some life changes. (EDSBS)

Paterno loves brains, lips, Darryl Pryor (BHGP)

A Few Good Men could have been a lot better, even with the SEC homerisms. (YMSWWC, this one's actually a little old)

JoePa To Talk With Employer

Really? This is news? Really? They are going to talk over the next couple of months. Months?! That is on the front page of ESPN and SI right now.

I don't have much to add except to comment on this specifically:

"Good planning requires we do that in all sports, in the back of your mind, you have a backup plan in place," he [Curley] said. "It wouldn't be something that I'd want to state publicly what I'd be thinking, but hopefully a good manager has that in their hip pocket."

In other words, Curley doesn't like the FSU succession plan. At least not in the long term, publicly stated sense. I'm ok with this, if for any other reason the FSU thing isn't fun anymore. This is. It can be painful too, but that's life I guess.

Do I think this is a good move? I'm not sure. Yes? On one hand it calms everyone down, which is nice. But then again it might not. This meeting is held annually and I can't remember the announcement of it being as big a deal as this one is. It's better than not saying anything, so I have to give them that.

Afternoon rundown...

-BSD is blog-reporting that Kenny Tate will/might attend PSU. This could make our future wide receiving core scary. Prior think of the magic!!!

-So after five years and roughly $512,664 worth of legal fees, the [Name Redacted] has exposed us all to the shocking truth: Paterno makes $512,664 a year. Talk about anticlimactic. It was ruled public information by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court even though the Commonwealth only supplies about 10% of the total Penn State budget. I would share the name of the totally-awesome-investigative douche bags but then I would shed the impression that their nonsense was appropriate.

-PA has produced another highly touted QB for the class of 2009, his name is Tom Savage...damn that is an awesome name. He is currently ranked #64 on the 2009 Top 100 list.

-The PSU Men's basketball team beat Va Tech in a game I didn't realize was even part of the BigTen/ACC slaughter Challenge. PSU is tired of carrying this league's basketball reputation as they are now 0-9 in the challenge with this most recent 8 games to 3 loss.