Source of quotations for your viewing pleasure: http://vcuathletics.tv/comp/pdfforms/comp/med%20red/NEW%20VCU%20-%20Medical%20Red-shirt%20Policy%2005.03.09.pdf

According to NCAA Bylaw: 14.2.4 Medical Hardship Waiver:

 In team sports, the injury or illness occurs when the student-athlete has not participated in more than three 

contests or dates of competition (whichever is applicable to that sport) or 30 percent (whichever number is greater) 

of the institution's scheduled or completed contests or dates of competition in his or her sport. Only scheduled or 

completed competition (including exempted events but excluding scrimmages and exhibition contests identified as 

such in the legislation) against outside participants during the playing season that concludes with the NCAA 

championship, or, if so designated, during the official NCAA championship playing season in that sport (e.g., spring 

baseball, fall soccer), shall be countable under this limitation in calculating both the number of contests or dates of 

competition in which the student-athlete has participated and the number of scheduled or completed contests or 

dates of competition during that season in the sport. 

Or in short, if a player plays less than 30% of "countable' games, they can apply for a medical redshirt.  

It goes on to say the following:

Dates of competition that are exempted (e.g., alumni contests, 

foreign team in U.S.) from the maximum permissible number of contests or dates of competition shall count toward 

the number of contests or dates in which the student-athlete has participated and the number of scheduled or 

completed contests or dates of competition in the season, except for scrimmages and exhibition contests that are 

specifically identified as such in the sport's Bylaw 17 playing and practice season regulations.

It does not seem to exclude conference championship games or bowl games.  If they count than Mauti has played 4/14 of the games, which is just under 30%.  Also, the repeated inclusion of the phrase "dates of competition in the season" gives me some hope that you don't actually need to play in the conference championship game for it count (not saying we can't though!).  Also later in the bylaw:

regardless of whether the team participates in the conference championship, provided the 

institution is a member of a conference and the conference holds a championship event in the applicable sport.

Unfortunately, that exact wording is only used under individual sports, like wrestling, tennis, gymnastics, etc. so I'm not sure it applies to team sports, but I hope so.  

All in all it still sucks, but hopefully he won't end up missing a year, and in the mean time I hope he pulls a Sean Lee.  

Bad news, we lost another set.  Good news, with the win over Ohio State today, Penn State Women's Volleyball breaks the record for consecutive Big Ten matches won by winning their 50th straight Big Ten match.  EAT IT late 1990's Penn State.  You only won 49 straight Big Ten matches.  Losers.  Clearly you're not made of the same stuff as the late 2000's Penn State volleyball teams.  Clearly I'm only insulting you to meet this stupid 75 word minimum.  No link yet since it JUST happened.  In fact, I wrote this before it happened.  That is all. 

So I'm reading the article in the Collegian today about how there was a glitch in the ticket system and people could get in as long as they had an ID even if it wasn't theirs, and I come across this sentence:  "Some students noticed that swiping their card at the booth was barely necessary."  Barely necessary? Barely necessary.  Could have said hardly necessary, or, was unnecessary, both of which would have worked better in this situation.  So now this begs the question.... where are you closet BSD going collegian staff writer Laura Nichols?! I know you're out there, admit it.  Come on, there is no way this was just a coincidence, no way, I'm at least 12% sure.

All I'm hearing from ESPN about our Akron game is how well we played in the first half.  They're all saying we looked great and performed like we should have.  There has been no mention of an inconsistent offense (even in the first half).  No mention of getting shut out in the second half.  No mention of our inability to establish ourselves on the ground.  In fact, in the highlight reel I just watched they skipped the ENTIRE second half.  They're giving us the unfair blind adoration that we complain about all the time in regards to how they act with USC.

I mean we didn't do terrible but everything wasn't perfect and peachy like they're making it out to be.  I don't like it!  That's not normal, and it feels weird.  Why don't they hate us?

I've been curious for a while as to how high BSD ranks in terms of overall activity (fanposts/fanshots/comments/hits per day) in SB Nation.  I assume it's fairly high.  I have yet to find a college blog that comes close (closest being BHGP), though I haven't searched them all, I have searched all of the Big Ten ones and a few OOC blogs of schools with fairly large fan bases (Texas, Florida, USC, Notre Dame, etc.) and they don't come close. 

I love that this speaks to both the quality of the blog produced by our wonderful moderators and the quality and quantity of our fan base.

I had to leave the college blogosphere to find a few that compare (and begrudgingly have more activity) and found it in the Dallas Cowboys, who just barely beat us out, and the Steelers.  Haven't checked all the NFL blogs but we do beat out some.

So basically I was wondering if the leaders of this blog had that kind of information, if SB Nation keeps track of that kind of stuff since I've been unable to find it on there site.  As a die hard PSU fan I love when we win at EVERYTHING so it'd be nice to know if anyone does.

As some of you may be aware, Pat Forde, Ivan Meisel, and Mark Schlabach doing a Mock Live Draft today to pick 40 FBS programs out of all of them to be in a fake league seperate from the other 80 teams.  Obviously we are going to make the cut and normally I wouldn't care about a gimmick like this, but, Sportsnation is allowing everyone to vote for the 40 teams they would include, and I was very excited to find out that we are in the lead, out of all teams, as in, more people have included us than any other program.

You can vote, and see the results here

It's not really an important popularity contest to win but it's still nice.  I urge you to go and vote just to help secure the victory.  It is possible to vote for only Penn State and not include any other teams if you want.  

SI.com sports writer Stewart Mandel brings bad news for the Big Ten coming out of the SEC Media Days.

The 2009 season marks the beginning of a new 15-year, $2.25 billion contract with ESPN, which coincides with a 15-year, $825 million deal with CBS. At the SEC's preseason Media Days in Hoover, Ala., this week, league and ESPN officials unveiled the details of their new arrangement, and this much is clear: Whether you're in Alabama or Arizona, Michigan or Mississippi, you're about experience a deluge of SEC football.

Why is this bad news? Well, as Mandel suggests, from a recruiting stand point it hurts that the majority of the country will now be seeing the SEC play every week.  This combined with the lore that Big Ten football is slow and that the SEC is heads above the rest of the country is dangerous as recruits outside of Big Ten land won't be able to see otherwise as often as before.  For a numbers comparison, Mandel provides a personal example:

The first such contest, Tennessee versus Western Kentucky on Sept. 5, will be available in nearly twice as many homes nationally (66 million) as the Penn State-Akron game being aired in the same noon ET time slot on the Big Ten Network (35 million).

Granted, this doesn't really lessen our exposure, but it gives more to teams that we will be competing with for recruits.

Personally, I'm not that worried about us in the near future, considering we are dominating the recruiting trail and in a decent position to win the Big Ten this year.  However this sets a precedent for the SEC to gain ground and push the Big Ten's revival back a while.  I don't so much care about the rest of the teams in the Big Ten but I long for a time when the Big Ten brand really means something again.

Now, from the SEC's perspective, this makes perfect sense.  But from the ESPN Tool Bags perspective I don't quite get this deal.  Do they really think anyone outside of the SEC besides alum (and how many of them can there be with those graduation rates) and a few random people cares about watching SEC football?  Well I guess if they think anyone outside of the SEC cares about who didn't vote for Tebow, I wouldn't put it past them.  Don't you think it would be a better idea to cover some of the more local teams?  With the Big Ten Network this won't really effect us, since they'll cover all of our smaller games, but I'd be pissed if I was a fan of a Pac-10, ACC, Nintendo 12 (okay PSUinBOSSton, I'll conform), or Big East and my team was playing a game, but I was being forced to watch Tim Tebow vs. Charleston Southern.

The one good thing I can see coming out of this would be that the hatred the Big Ten has acquired over recent years with the Big Ten Network among other things might dissipate among the 4 above mentioned conferences.  This already seems to be happening somewhat, especially in the Pac-10.

Now I haven't been around the College Football world long enough to know truly how this will effect the landscape of College Football and I wanna know what you think.  Am I, and Steve Mandel blowing this out of proportion a little with the whole recruiting thing?  Or do you think this might become a serious problem?

I know the topic of chocolate covered bacon was touched recently but I could not resist telling you all about it again.  Herwig's, an austrian bistro on College Ave. close to Atherton is now serving vanilla ice cream with chocolate covered bacon pieces mixed in.  It is absolutely delicious.  If you're interested and in State College I suggest heading down there soon.  I don't know if they're making it a regular thing, and they said they would probably sell out by tomorrow so you must hurry!  Be careful though, Herwig's follows Austrian Culinary Law.  They threaten to beat you with a stick if you don't finish your food.  I haven't seen it happen though. 

The World University Games come to a close as USA beats Russia 91-80 for the bronze medal.  Our very own Talor Battle helped the lead the USA to a 7-1 record continuing the U.S.A.'s streak of 19 straight medal finishes.  The World University Games have been held 19 times.  Battle was the third leading scorer in the final game, posting twelve points, only two behind the leading scorer and one behind the second leading scorer.  All in all Battle battled his way to an impressive showing throughout the entire tournament, consistently being one of the best on his team, at times being his very clutch self, and showing the world what Bubby is all about.  Battle finished ranked in four statistical categories out of all players, including scoring, assists, 3PT % and 3PT made.  All in all this seems to be a great experience for Battle, in that he got to compete against some of the world's best at the college level, all the while giving himself, and Penn State, some much deserved (and needed) national exposure.  This can only be a good thing as Penn State is looking to get out of the perennial basketball basement, and hopefully Battle's experience will help him compete on an even higher level next year. 

As most of you know, I am fairly new to BSD in terms of interacting with the community (was a reader for a while, without having an account).  Recently, I had something that I wanted to make a fan post about, but was unsure as to whether I should.  It was about LeviNorwood committing to Penn State.  I learned fairly early as I subscribe to an alert service that alerts me when we get a new recruit, and is also forwarded to my cell phone.  I desired to spread the good news but was unsure as to whether or not that sort of thing was to be left up to the BSD staff.  And sure enough 45 minutes later RUTS posts a piece (a BRILLIANT piece I might add) on thecommitment of Levi.  So I was wondering, is that sort of thing okay?  If I think something should be left up to the BSD staff, should I wait and see what's done with it?
I appreciate your reading time and pray to Supreme Overlord Zug that I may find an answer.  And if THIS fanpost is something that is answered somewhere on the site and I haven't found it, I apologize.  Thank you, and good night.