Sure, it is Rutgers, but still something I like tracking. I know it isn't quite the Taliaferro recovery, and that's probably a bit frustrating to people hoping he'd make the same miraculous recovery, but he's still making progress, and who knows what may happen next. And yeah, I'm being a bit selfish here in finding happiness and joy in something to help distract from the whole Sandusky crap, but I'll cling to anything I can right now.

LeGrand takes steps towards recovery.

Just wanted to poll the fanbase to see if people's perceptions have changed or stayed the same with regards to how the university handled Paterno during the initial frenzied calls for his firing following the leak of the Grand Jury presentment of the Sandusky investigation.

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Hypocrites?

The fact that the Post -Standard and ESPN had the audio tapes and yet did nothing but sit on that information (though to the Post-Standard's credit, they did their own internal investigation) while an alleged child molester roamed free, yet condemned Joe Paterno for doing basically the same thing (though we still don't know if Paterno actually did more or not). Of course I can't imagine we'll ever see ESPN even say, "in hindsight, we wish we did more," because it takes a great man to admit their mistakes.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/Sarah-Palin-on-Jerry-Sandusky-8216-Hang-him-f?urn=ncaaf-wp10021

"It's not the player's fault that they have a perverted, former assistant coach. I would like to see the players not suffer more than they have suffered. As for the perp, and perps, though, that allowed the sinfulness to go on as they had allowed in the past, you know, I say about this assistant coach, Sandusky--hang him from the highest tree, I'll bring the rope. I think it's pathetic, it's horrible, it's atrocious what took place. If it is true that these children were victimized, then he himself and anybody who allowed what he did to go on, they should be the one to suffer, not today's young players who have been innocent in all of this."

"Hang him from the highest tree and I'll bring the rope if he's guilty of what's been alleged," Palin said "If he abused these young children and ruined their lives, unless they get a lot of help, Greta, in order to deal with the victimization that they are now suffering from, he needs to be punished to the fullest extent of the law if he is truly guilty."

Well, that's one way to gain some supporters and some detractors.

I hope this doesn't count as a political post, unless you count Idiocracy a political platform

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/162206/penn-state-sex-scandal-forces-one-espn-sponsor-to.html

I don't know what this means exactly, and if the game has any chance of not being televised, but it is something to think about. I'd have to think that someone would want the ad money, since you figure it will be a heavily viewed game (if the viewership of the coverage is any indication). I wonder if any other sponsors will be pulling out of the Penn State brand, either. F you Sandusky.

Or, you know, that's what they may as well be trying to say. Just saw this on the front page of msnbc.com DA Who Didn't Charge Sandusky Missing since 2005 and it continues why I am disgusted about this entire scandal and speculation. Let's not wait until a single fact is out before reporting anything. If there's even the slightest suspicion it must be fact. Did you also know that Paterno also assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand? You heard it here first. Ugh.

That kid is nothing but hustle. The Alabama and MSU games last year stick out, but then he comes back from injury early and sparks the come from behind last minute win for #409 against Illinois, I just want the ball in that kid's hands every play of every game. I don't think that is an unreasonable request, right, and he can't be that much worse than what we have had going, can he? Of course it will never happen, but I can dream.

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/6988468/acc-accepts-pittsburgh-panthers-syracuse-orange-14-team-league

Didn't see that coming (though admittedly I wasn't following the expansion talk as much this year as I did last year). Will be definitely interesting to see how the Big Ten reacts to this turn of events, seeing as those were 2 of the schools seemingly being kept hanging for an invite.  Now who?  Texas and ND rumors out there, for sure, but what about the next 2 to bring it to 16 (especially if Texas and ND don't join the B10)?  Mizzou, Rutgers, Maryland, UConn?

If so, when and where?  I saw some scattered messages in some of the other threads about possible tailgates, but (and this is probably too late) I thought it might be good to have a centralized location to post them.  Right now my plans have sorta fallen through (partially due to the tailgating lots all being rearranged due to the weather concerns), but I still plan on being there bright and early in the morning to get my pre-game on.

Especially when that poll is about the offseason, and more specifically about the fun-ness of the offseason.  So which offseason has been more enjoyable?

2010 with Bobby Bowden retiring amidst scandal, Urban Meyer resigning doing nothing  of note, the whole Mike Leach/Adam James situation, and then that falling completely off the radar as conference expansion talk exploded (were we gonna get 16 team super conferences, etc), before finally calming down with Nebraska to the Big Ten, Colorado and Utah to the Pac-10, and a few mid-major changes (lol Boise), and then the long awaited USC sanctions hitting?

Or does 2011 reign supreme with Urban Meyer actually resigning, Rich Rodriguez finally getting the boot.  Penn State basketball finally makes it to the NCAA tournament, and then parlays that into a less prestigious job for a lower salary, giving the proverbial middle finger to the PSU admin for their lack of support.  Nebraska loses it's AAU standing, and then all of this OSU scandal bubbling up and eventually building up to a full boil this weekend with Tressel "resigning"?  And Pryor still shows up to that player meeting in another new car.  I'm sure there's probably been more, and will be more, but man this has been a wild ride.

If I've forgotten any other major headlines from either offseason post them in the comments.

Edit: How could I forget, Pitt firing the Wannstache (who did about as good as could be expected by anyone outside of Pitt), then having to fire his replacement almost immediately, before settling on the guy that really would have been their first choice, honest.

The events of the past couple days (Tressel resigning, DeChellis resigning) have made me wonder what we, as fans of Penn State really value.  With Paterno and the Grand Experiment we always talk about Success with Honor.

Then I got to thinking about Paterno's quote, "Success without honor is an unseasoned dish; it will satisfy your hunger, but it won't taste good."  It is all well and good to say that you want both, but what if you had to choose one or the other.  On one hand you have the situation like at Ohio State.  They've undeniably had a lot of success this past decade, but it is hard to find any honor in their program (despite all the claims of Tressel being a "great man", he may have molded boys into men, but he also led by the example that it is ok to cheat so long as you win.  Men molded with those values typically turn out to be doucheabags as adults).

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I was getting a bit worried during the game that we'd wind up blowing it, but didn't get into too much foul trouble, and we also didn't need to rely on Battle hitting 20 ridiculous 3's in order to pull out the win.  I was a bit disappointed that it happened this game, as I was hoping to see PSU win in the Breslin Center in a few weeks, but I'll take any win over Sparty.

So I was listening to the Spartan Sports wrap (the sports program on MSU's student radio) on my drive home today, and the host had this to say about MSU's upcoming game with Iowa (to paraphrase a bit):

If we don't win this game, the season is a disappointment.  I know I'm thinking it, I know the team is thinking it.  If we lose to Iowa, sure we might get a New Years' bowl, but if we win, then we only have to get through a terrible Minnesota team at home, a terrible Purdue team at home, and then I think if we're 11-0 our team will know what they're playing for, and they'll get by Penn State easy, even away

I love how their best season since JoePa's first year as head coach (and how even if they lose 2 games it will still be tied for their best season since then) would be a disappointment when they started off with pretty much no real expectations for this year.

Just to look at their "accomplishments" so far:

They are currently the #25 team by Jeff Sagarin's Predictor ratings (though 2 by the ELO_Chess, which doesn't take margin of victory into account, and which isn't regarded as being as accurate a rating)

They've beaten the following teams with the Predictor ranking (ELO_CHESS)

WMU 90 (133)

Florida Atlantic 152 (198)

Notre Dame 47 (49)

Northern Colorado 172 (175)

Wisconsin 30 (4)

Michigan 49 (33)

Illinois 34 (23)

Northwestern 72 (71)

And they needed basically trick plays and last second scores to beat Notre Dame and Northwestern (though a win is a win).  But yes, this team would be a downright DISAPPOINTMENT if they don't go 12-0 this year.

http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?sduid=0&t=1972908

Apparently if you use the coupon code WELCOMEBACK at replayphotos.com you can get 9x12 prints for $8 instead of $30.

I haven't done this (yet) and not sure how long it will last. - Also, since I'm posting this in the fanshots, I'm sure no one else will see it- ;-)

Still, seemed like a really good deal *$8 instead of the usual $30) on some nice pictures (not sure what ones qualify, etc, but can't hurt to look around).  I guess any 9x12 print

Someone that posted on this deal on slickdeals mentioned it works for other prints too (not just college football), at least NFL, but again, I haven't actually bought anything yet, or used the promo code.

Let me know if you guys find any good/special prints (there seem to be a lot of Beaver Stadium shots, but anything with JoePa is awesome, and I particularly like the Orange Bowl trophy, as well as the "Airborne over Iowa" one.

F it, I have at least 75 words now, FanPosts here I come!

You know, the team that thinks it is better than it is, hasn't really been that good or relevant since just after WW2 (sure, they had that shared title in 1997, but before that I think their last national championship was in 1948), and chants about Penn State even in games where they aren't playing Penn State.

Sure, I could be mistaken, but I'm watching the Michigan State @ Michigan game, and they were playing Zombie Nation right before tipoff and I'm pretty sure the student section chanted "We Own Penn State" during the part where we normally say "We Are Penn State".

I thought they didn't care about us.

I thought Michigan State was an _actual_ rival of theirs.  Shouldn't they concentrate on an _actual_ rival when they are playing them?

I also thought we won the last 2 in dominating fashion.  No, I can't honestly believe they are chanting about their superiority in basketball...though perhaps they were

via www.austinillini.com

It was cute in 2005 or 2006 when you first came up with it, but seriously, in 2010 against Michigan State?

I don't mean to take away from the other posts about his legacy and all, but I felt this was just a bit too much to fit into the comments.  Everyone is talking about Clark and his records and saying that they're still not as good as some of the other "greats" for various reasons (notably Collins and Blackledge, I think arguably the 2 best passing QBs in PSU history...if you'd like this analysis to include other QBs let me know who should be in there).

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