Le Toux Blasts Novak/FO I know this article was already linked in previous comments but I think it definitely merits its own post on here. Now, having read the article its difficult to say if this is all 100% fact or if its just sour grapes or a mix of the 2 but its definitely troubling from a few angles in my opinion. The first thing that really jumps out at me is that, according to Le Toux's side of the story (which is admittedly only 1 side of the story) Novak seems to be a bit tyrannical when it comes to the decisions he makes. If Le Toux is to be believed, it seems like Novak's mind was already made up that Seba wasn't coming back to the Union no matter what the circumstances were (Bolton or another MLS team) and nothing was going to change his mind. Le Toux seems to feel like he was run out of town which, if true, is extremely disappointing and troubling. A player and a person like Le Toux should not be run out of town, especially by his own coach.

Issue number 2 that jumps out at me is that Le Toux feels like he was run out of town strictly for money. According to him, Seba asked for an increase to around $400k which I believe he earned through the last 2 years of work and production. If this is the case and he was let go strictly for money than I am more than a little concerned about the financial well-being of the organization. Another $225k (or so) is not bank breaking by any stretch of the imagination, especially with how much Adu is being paid for such little production last year. If you can't find a way financially to keep your best and most popular player than what does the future hold for this team? Can we now assume that every "young player" (since this is the story that's being jammed down the fan-base's throats as to why Le Toux was traded) that develops into a great player will be traded away for allocation before they become too expensive? If so, how is that a recipe for success? Always preparing for the future, as Novak states, can very often lead to the sacrifice of the present...

Schiano to Tampa Bay Bucs - Impact on Recruiting? Warning: ESPN article but linked only to substantiate my post. So if you're boycotting ESpin, then don't bother clicking on it. The gist of the article is that Schiano accepted the HC job for Tampa Bay Bucs and his assistants had no clue this was going down. To make matters worse for Rutgers, he stood up his coaches and a couple recruits at Don Bosco Prep to finalize negotiations. While this is basically an eleventh hour defection of the HC in terms of recruiting, does anyone think this will have an impact on any Rutgers commits wanting to come to PSU now? Junny, I'd be curious to hear what you have to say on the matter...

Philadelphiaunion.com article says that houapeu, Langley, Richter, and Tait all had their options declined and were released today. This sheds 2 international roster spots from our team which I believe gets us out of the red heading into training camp in terms of international roster spots.

Philadelphia Independence sign WPS all-star and former National teamer Lori Chalupny from the Atlanta Beat. Chalupny will be an awesome addition to the midfield and great veteran leadership as she was the captain for Atlanta before coming here. Welcome aboard Lori!

So I was thinking about all the moves that the Union have made over the last 2 years between player acquisitions, drafts, and even a few trades.. and I kind of thought to myself that it'd be really neat if the Union had their Roy Halladay Trade moment and went out and got a really big name currently in MLS via trade... So I'm throwing it out to the group. It being the holiday season, who would be the one player you'd love to see the Union unwrap? It can be any player currently in the MLS, but you can only choose one..

For me, I'd go with Brek Shea (I know, I know, pile it on all you want). I like his creativity, his ability to make plays develop and can dish it as well as shoot it. Additionally, you can move him around and play him in different positions and has decent height and speed (something the Union lacked this year). If I could only choose one, I'd pick Shea... You???

Union hunting for 3 or 4 more players in the offseason According to Nowak in this Philly.com article. He says he wants to get bigger and stronger along the backline and have more cohesion between the midfield and forwards. Let the speculation begin I guess.. Do you think he means an LB or do you think he's actually searching for Califf's eventual replacement (will be 32 in March)? Or maybe just some additional depth since our team now only has 3 true defensemen (Williams, Califf, Valdez)... Scott, any rumors floating out there about possible targets? I love that Nowak is acknowledging the team needs to get deeper in terms of talent and is addressing (in my opinion) obvious needs of speed and height on the team. I just hope its not too much turnover that hurts the teams chemistry.. What do you guys think?

Martinez not a DP ... according to Nowak in this article from the Union's website. Should be interesting to see how they're going to manage that financially. Must have a lot of allocation money to buy it down?? Any thoughts on that? I also like the Nowak mentions he's not finished with adding pieces and that "every position but keeper" is still being looked in to for improvement. I am also encouraged with the speed thats being added in Martinez and Khalfan.. Now if we could just get some tall players!

Well, so much for the big homecoming... Convey picked up by Sporting KC for International Roster Spot . Thats a shame too because I think he could have been a potentially valuable addition to the team, even if we're a bit glutton at the mid-field spot at the moment. Convey's a good crosser and smart with the ball heading down the wing, and you can never have enough of those. Nevertheless, I am looking forward to the next few moves the Union make, and definitely hoping for some defensive depth and a few more attacking options up top. A little speed and height wouldn't hurt either!

http://blog.chron.com/soccer/2011/11/dynamo-must-keep-cool-against-dirty-union/

Waa Waa Waa the Union are dirty players... I seriously considered not posting this for the sheer fact that I don't want to drive this guy's blog hits up any more than they already are... But I suppose it is relevant and worth discussing, even if I think its little more than whining from an author with little else to write about. 

Tannewald over at philly.com with the press release...

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/thegoalkeeper/US-national-team-coach-Bob-Bradley-fired.html

Any thoughts on who is next in line? I can't imagine they'd just up and fire Bradley a few weeks before a game against Mexico if they didn't have someone else lined up.. right? lol.. No names were mentioned in the press release, its basically just Gulati saying thanks for your service, we have tremendous respect for Coach Bradley, blah blah. The only way this move makes sense to me is if they feel like they are bringing in someone better. Otherwise, why bother to re-sign him less than a year ago just to fire him now? I'm sure they had to buy out the rest of his contract as well. Only time will tell I guess. Let the speculation begin!

So I've been doing a lot of reading and thinking lately about the success of the Women's World Cup in terms of winning over non-soccer and casual soccer fans, and whether or not that success would help get the WPS onto stable footing financially. In regards to the Independence specifically, it seems like they're hamstrung by the fact that they have to play at Widener in a stadium that's capped at 4,000 seats which I'd have to imagine stunts their financial growth. Obviously I'm not privy to estimated projections of what that number could be at a larger stadium, but weren't the Charge pulling in 7,000+ when they were at Villanova? I am a season ticket holder for The Union, but have been to a few Independence games and really want to see them succeed, as I'm sure most other soccer fans in this area would. My question to everyone is this: Is there anything holding back the Independence and Union from doing double-header packages at PPL? If not, would people be interested in such a thing? Personally, I'd love to see something like this happen, even if its just once or twice. What are your thoughts on this?

ESPN Article details the possible changes coming for the SEC in regards to oversigning athletes. Apparent attempts to limit the number of annual signings to 25 are ruffling a few feathers in the good ol' south.. Petrino's stance is especially cavalier, and it doesn't appear that he or a few other SEC coaches are too worried about what happens to the players that slip through the cracks. No mention of the educational aspect or responsibility of the programs from what I saw either. The comments under the article are pretty interesting too. 

The MLS soccer combine will be held in the beginning of January, and like every year only a few selected players from across the nation get invited (58 in total I believe). These players are the best college seniors and underclassmen declaring for the draft this year. To earn an invite to the combine alone is quite an honor, though this in no way guarantees being drafted. The following PSU player has earned an invite and will attend the 3 day combine event...

Matheus Braga, Penn State, Midfielder

The invitees will compete in a series of scrimmages that will also include members of the Generation adidas class (underclassmen) and select players from lower division schools. A notable omission from this list is PSU Forward Corey Hertzog, who was a semi-finalist for the Hermann Trophy. Details haven't been fully released yet, but there could be a number of reasons for this including the fact that he is a Jr. and therefore could have bypassed the invite to partake in his senior year, felt his draft status was solid enough and declined, or could potentially be pursuing options overseas. Still, congratulations to Matheus Braga!

QB Competition, Early Enrollees, etc.

Nice little article from Timesleader.com about Penn States QB competition being wide open for next fall (Good news for the QBs, not so great news for the team). Also talks about PSUs 6 early enrollees including PJ Jones and Silas Redd, among others (I didn't know the list was that long, but good for their development). And a VERY interesting story about LeSean McCoy's recruitment and his reasons for picking Pitt over PSU (You'll like it, trust me).

Rittenberg on the call..

I guess I'm a little surprised to hear this, considering that Delany was dead set against this back in the spring. We know JoePa has been stumping for this for a while now, but I'm wondering if any of the other coaches have jumped on board also, since Alvarez is talking about a significant faction of coaches that want to take this to the Big 10. Apparently they've been in talks with other schools for some time now, so let the speculation begin...

As per a report on Scouts website (free content), 4 star linebacker Khairi Fortt out of CT will take an official visit to U. of Georgia this weekend, and then make his decision. Fortt has long been believed to be a Penn State lean, particularly because good friend and PSU commit Silas Redd has been in his ear for a few months now. However, Georgia is rumored to have made a late push for Fortt's services and I don't like the fact that they're going to get the last shot at him before he decides. True enough PSU is loaded at linebacker and always seems to get 1 or 2 good ones a year, but Fortt would be a fine addition to our defense and a nice recruiting win over an OMG SEC school. Here's hoping he's already decided on PSU and is just taking one last look to make sure he's comfortable with his choice....

Fortt to Visit UGA

[For the background and rationale on this thread, please see my comment below.  Continue to post links and opinions on recruiting issues in the comments, and if you haven't already, rec this post so it remains in the Recommended Fanposts section of our front page.  One other note, comments on this post will close in 26 days from now, or 6/29/09.  We'll start a new recruiting post for July. Let's see if this actually works. -- RUTS]

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5th in the nation with just 5 committments. That says a lot about the quality of players we've landed to this point. We're even ahead of Alabama (who has more than double our committments) and USC. I know its very early in the season to get even remotely excited, but its atleast SOME kind of barometer as to where our class stacks up to date. Of course, Texas already has its entire class for 2010 committed and is scouting 2011 already... sheeeesh

www.pennstate.scout.com

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http://www.altoonamirror.com/page/content.detail/id/515910.html?nav=5017

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Ok ok, please don't label me a wolf-crier because im not going to substantiate this post with any links or "solid" evidence. Buttttt, I've read some things that suggest that Paul (P.J.) Jones from McKees Rocks Sto-Rox , a QB and top 10 player from Pa. next year could be committing to the Nittanys this weekend. The evidence is purely circumstantial in my opinion but i enjoy recruiting speculation too much to keep it to myself. The circumstantial evidence.....

1.) He already has a scholarship offer in hand from PSU and has unofficially visited the school several times already.... Yet he's going up this weekend for a 1-day visit to meet with Paterno and some of the coaches.

2.) When asked by a recruiting analyst if he was considering committing to PSU this weekend, his answer was "i'm not sure about that, but we'll see."

3.) Jones also commented that with Clark leaving after next year, that would give him a legitimate shot at starting at QB as a freshman which, according to him, would be "an ideal situation for me."

.... I know its probably nothing and i'm getting my hopes up, but its fun to throw it out there nonetheless.... just don't hold it against me if it doesn't happen.

John Urschel, O-lineman out of Canisius NY, is set to make a visit to PSU this weekend and seems very interested in the program.

  “Penn State is my favorite,” Urschel said.  “I could commit this weekend.  There is a pretty good chance I will.  I loved it when I was out at Penn State.  It was great.  They have great football tradition combined with great academics.” Taken from an article at Nittany Network.

Scout has him listed as a 2-star OG, and at 6'3", 263 lbs.