The Rest of College Football

[hack]

Oh interesting -- I didn't know that Kansas has a lot of jucos.

[*JD*]

I would prefer to not see a LSU/bammer rematch mostly because it was such an ugly game. Great D but sloppy O and poor special teams.

[whodean]

The defenses are just soooo good, these stats are amazing:

Through 10 games, Alabama is allowing 181.4 total yards a game. For perspective, LSU is second with an average of 253.2 yards allowed. Cincinnati, the country’s second-best rushing defense, allows 30 yards more than Alabama’s 51.9-average.

LSU leads the nation in turnover differential, averaging +2 per game.

Sloppy in that Alabama missed a ton of field goals but otherwise that was just two all-time elite defenses.

[hack]

Pretty doofusy interception by Lee in his one chance in the second half.

[Jeff Buchanan]

This article appeared in today's edition of the New York Daily News.

Two points: Good run down of what has gone done regarding Jerry Sandusky since 1998 and fingers PSU principals, including Joe Paterno, for not taking further action with regard to Sandusky's behavior.

In comparison, it discusses Bo Schembechler's actions when it was discovered that Garland Rivers had been contacted by an agent and offered a contract while he was still a player.

Bo did not see degrees of honor and integrity. You either did the right thing or you didn't - half way was unacceptable.

Opposing CFB fans carp about Michigan arrogance. What they are really complaining about - jealous about is a better phrase - are behaviors surrounding the M football program that are embodied in that sentence above. Starting with Bo and continuing under Lloyd, these two faces of Michigan football set the standard for integrity and honesty. How they did things continues to be emulated across the board in UM athletics.

Over the last two weeks, we've seen osu posters here and at other boards argue that what PSU did is MUCH WORSE than what osu did, this in a meager attempt to mitigate the behavior of principals at osu. Non-sense. There is no degrees of honesty and integrity. You either lie, cheat and cover up or you don't. The fundamental behaviors of men who, when faced with something wrong, had decisions to make about doing what is right or doing what is wrong. Clearly jim tressel and Joe Paterno failed in that process and are therefore equal with respect to those failures.

What sets the M football program above others is it's fundamental level of honesty and integrity in everything it does, that honesty and integrity established by two coaches over more than 4 decades. It is upon that bedrock principal that Michigan fans take pride and who in their own lives and conduct try to emulate these two outstanding men.

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/iteam/2011/11/bo-schembechler-would-not-have-fumbled-a-scandal-the-way-joe-paterno-has-booted-penn-s

[hack]

As much as the administration is a bunch of buffoons, you have to give them this. They really do appear to take seriously the challenge of running a clean program.

[hodgkal]

"The defenses are just soooo good, these stats are amazing"


"Sloppy in that Alabama missed a ton of field goals but otherwise that was just two all-time elite defenses."

Trivia from the ancient past may interest some of you. In 1946 the nation had 2 undefeated teams that were clearly the best in the nation: Army and Notre Dame.
They played each other in what amounted to the national championship game near the end of the season at Yankee Stadium. The final score? 0 - 0! And the stats were almost even.

The two teams finished #'s 1 & 2 in the nation.

I guess it confirms the widespread assumption that defense wins championships.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1946_Army_vs._Notre_Dame_football_game

[whodean]

Interesting, thanks Doc

[Jamie H]

Comment on the PSU situation from an ex-UM prof. I have to say, I doubt I would have been as persistent as he in reporting his Sims Online conversation, but it does make you ask how the hell nobody at PSU followed up on what happened.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/urizenus-sklar/what-would-you-do_1_b_1088743.html

[entropy]

From the Blog: fantastic Insight:

absolute-power-corrupts-absolutely

Author's Note: Joe Paterno was fired as Penn State's football coach on Wednesday November 9, 2011.

As many of you know, I worked as a graduate assistant offensive line coach at PSU.

Many great young men played on our offensive line, including Steve Wisniewski who went on to an incredible NFL career and now coaches the Oakland Raider's offensive line with my line coach when I played at Brown, Bob Wylie.

As most of you don't know, I also suffered through an abusive early childhood. It is very difficult to share, but warranted given this unique opportunity to help survivors and to stop predators and those institutions and people who help perpetuate this evil.

My experience with these issues gives me a unique perspective to comment on the horrific situation unveiling itself in Happy Valley.

Joe was the reigning Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year and national championship coach when I worked for him. He was considered, and acted, like God and was beyond reproach in the locals' minds.

Based on what I know about predators, Jerry's deviance didn't start when it was observed and reported in the 1990's.

If he is a serial pedophile, as long as he's been around kids there's a probable chance he's been assaulting them. I never observed Jerry committing sexual misconduct.

My goal is to bring to light how deceptive, selfish, narcissistic people and organizations who cultivate environments where evil lurks, to help you better understand the horrific behavior Jerry Sandusky is accused of perpetrating and the just as egregious apparent cover up perpetrated by Joe Paterno and PSU's administration.

More important, I hope I can offer some comfort and peace to not only Jerry's purported survivors, but to the multitudes of powerless and disadvantaged kids who are abused by evil people and institutions disguising themselves as helpers. I want to offer some direction and hope to survivors.

Life gets better!

I was a low ranking graduate assistant offensive line coach at PSU in 1987 and 1988 on the heels of PSU's second, and last, national championship.

Prior to this, I played and coached at Brown and had a few NFL tryouts. I also had a very unique hs football experience where I co-captained the top ranked team in NJ, and was the sole three year starter for three undefeated state championship teams.

Many of my hs teammates received scholarships to DI programs including to Penn State and Michigan. My mother succumbed to her 8 year battle with melanoma during my senior hs season. I was recruited by all the Ivies, service academies, and I received several DI scholarship offers.

I am also a survivor of early childhood sexual abuse. I was fortunate. I grew young, stopped the predator, and got the help I needed. I have worked hard as an adult to overcome this and to remain whole, to receive peace and joy in life, and by privately helping others overcome their traumas and losses.

Survivors have the choice and free will to not repeat the cycle of sexual abuse.

I pursued coaching out of college to help kids like my high school coach and sports helped me overcome a traumatic childhood. I was awarded graduate assistantships at the two more coveted programs at the time; Penn State and at the University of Washington with admired coach Don James.

It's reprehensible if the coaches I worked with at Penn State thrust and or allowed comparable trauma on innocent kids. I believed sports, and good coaches, are intended to help people actualize their potential, to overcome adversity.

These folks are evil if these accusations are true.

My time in Happy Valley was great regarding my classes, but not as happy regarding the football program. The players were exceptional, but I was a sincere graduate student, studying CAD in the engineering and architecture departments.

The coaches, including Paterno, wanted to project a holier than thou academic image, but they demanded their players and coaches to prioritize football 24/7. It was a tough balance for me, made tougher by Joe's abusive behaviors.

I experienced Joe Paterno as a racist when he stated Pennsylvania was not ready for an African American quarterback while Randall Cunningham started for the Eagles. He was the consummate bully and control freak who banished players and their potential careers when they did not buy into Joe's persona.

Overall, I saw Joe as a master spin doctor whose image shed a far greater shadow than his actual character. At the time, there were even rumors in State College about Joe being a wife beater. I was reminded of these when, in the early 90's after a loss to Texas, he said he was going to "go home and beat my wife".

The parallels between Joe's kingdom, the power and control he wields over his minions, and the very lax and deceptive response he made in 2002 to the report his prized assistant was seen sodomizing a child in the showers, and the Catholic Church's power, control, and deceit in covering up its massive sexual abuse scandal are striking, yet not surprising to me.

I worked on the other side of the ball from Jerry, but found him very talented with kids, albeit a bit more grabby and touchy with the many young kids surrounding him and his not for profit program, The Second Mile. It appeared he had boundary issues. Memories of this now make my stomach queasy.

He reminded me of a former boy scout leader, Warren Wheeler, from my home town of Madison, NJ, whose name, in memory, now adorns the local Boy Scout Camp. I learned later in life he preyed on my friends. He was cruel to me and this motivated me to switch troops.

Joe was tough on me too, but I thought it was hazing. I was the youngest and newest coach on the staff. I did leave PSU a bit early to pursue my masters in architecture degree. The disparity between PSU's image and reality soured me to major college coaching.

It's affirming to know I made these corrupt men uncomfortable. Had I known then, I only wish I'd done more to expose their ruses to protect future victims. Wheeler's magnanimous personality, like Jerry's good old boy charm, like Joe's academic deanish public persona, apparently masked ruthless deviance for power and control.

Another bizarre tradition at PSU was the coaches showered together after each practice and game. We never did this at Brown or at URI and most of my coaching friends never experienced this on their staffs. It was one of the many things at PSU that made me realize there was something very strange about the program and its staff.

Most pedophiles were abused, but only a small portion of sexual abuse survivors choose to repeat the cycle. The behavior is deviant and not natural. Thus, it must be learned. However, as with psychopaths, some folks may be born with this deviance.

Once a person chooses to repeat or to perpetuate the cycle of sexual abuse, the behavior appears to become a compulsion and there is no way to stop it.

The key is to identify victims and to intervene with constructive counseling and positive role models before their trauma plays out destructively against themselves or others.

Also, my goal is to see laws change so pedophiles are incarcerated for life. They are not diseased and there is no cure. Their actions are premeditated.

Pedophilia is not sex. Sex is an act between two consenting adults, involving people in the same peer group. Pedophilia is an act of power and control perpetrated by a person with more physical, financial, emotional, psychological, or status power and who controls and dominates a victim with sexual acts.

The victim is a person in a subservient role or place in his or her life. The acts may offer some confusing enjoyment to the victim, but there is no love or concern or compassion involved. The acts are perpetrated to fulfill the deviant needs of the perpetrator.

All guilt / shame / dishonor / disgust belong with the perpetrator, and with those who perpetuated the acts by keeping them in the dark, like in lonely athletic complexes.

Often, sexual abuse survivors become frozen, or compartmentalized, by the extreme sexual assaults they experienced as children. This keeps them from moving on and living a fulfilling life. Tragically, many victims end their lives early.

The general steps I, and many survivors, use to integrate their past traumas include:

1. Revealing secrets and fragments of one's person with trained and highly regarded / trusted professionals. Trust is a huge, if not the biggest, issue with survivors. Trust happens when one person knows he or she is with someone, or a group, who won't hurt them when they are vulnerable. Predators exploit this trust and use feigned interest and phony gestures to confuse their victims. The goal in recovery is to combine all of one's parts to live as one whole, functional, person with the process to this outcome being assisted by trustworthy and competent counseling professionals.

2. Identify cognitive distortions - fears and criticisms cultivated by the perpetrator and the experience can undermine one's ability to live an autonomous and empowered life. Victims often inaccurately believe they are subservient and dependent on someone more powerful. Healthy survivors separate facts from opinions and live in the current moment, feeling empowered and in control of their destinies.

3. Identify deleterious behavior patterns (submissive or aggressive) fostered by these distortions and choose more positive actions and outcomes with better plans in the present moment. It is important for survivors to recognize the source of their actions, so they can consciously choose better actions. The better outcomes foster better actions and the constructive behavior cycle grow stronger.

4. Integrate one's healthy sense of self with other healthier people to maintain an integrated, whole, functional, mature perspective.

The reactions to childhood sexual abuse are learned as a coping tool when one is a child, are often ineffective, and may seem hard to break. However, these are learned reactions and can be relearned, leading survivors to happy and fulfilling lives.

After my time at Penn State, I pursued a Masters in Architecture and then got married, coached and received my MBA at the University of Rhode Island. During an internship I offered team building retreats and this led to my current management development practice where I see about 6 corporations on a regular basis and may visit up to 30 organizations in a given year to give talks, seminars, retreats, and long term development programs.

My topics revolve around building healthy, trusting, relationships to improve positive thoughts, actions, and results. I have been married to the same woman, who was with me at Penn State, for over 20 years and we have three great kids. I live in a tiny MA town on Buzzard's Bay.

My goal in sharing this is to:

1. Help survivors gain more control and fulfillment in their lives

2. Stop the abuse cycle.

3. Expose Joe Paterno for his true colors.

4. Foster good (honest, selfless, self critical) behaviors vs. evil (selfish, lying, narcissistic) behaviors.

Joe Paterno knew and knows everything about what's happening in his program and in State College. He was / is the ultimate control freak. If Jerry committed these crimes it is impossible for me to think Joe was not aware and complicit.

As a Penn State assistant under Rip Engle, Joe's nickname amongst players was Joe the rat. He tattled on players' misconduct to the head coach. Joe went to Rip instead of addressing the player face to face. He always used power and leverage to exert authority instead of true leadership and influence. Joe was Rip's protected favorite, like a mama's boy. I imagine he felt he could do anything to others and get away with it.

Thus, decades later, when a powerless boy needed a man of real character and integrity to protect him, Joe's true colors shown through. He protected himself and let the little boy disappear. Author M. Scott Peck, in his book; "People of the Lie", characterizes evil people as selfish, lying, and narcissistic. It appears Joe's old nickname still holds. Except now, I think it should be Evil Rat.

I am sure Penn State's Trustees would trade all of the violations in the history of the NCAA in stead of the atrocity Joe and Jerry left in their laps. The total number of sanctions placed on football programs in the history of the NCAA do not add up to the destruction of one young boy's soul.


I am tired of perpetrators and their accomplices riding off into the sunset with bodies in their wakes.

My efforts are directed at helping survivors.

If you are a survivor, or know a survivor, I hope this article offers some comfort, direction, and hope. Feel free to contact me for direction.

If you know or suspect someone is a predator, please do everything in your power to stop this and to report him or her.

If you know or suspect a child is being abused, please report this to legal authorities, unlike Joe Pa, as soon as you know.

I am not comfortable speaking about my abuse personally, so I appreciate your recognizing my privacy the next time we meet. However, I am willing to share my story publicly to shed light on the issue and to help other survivors.

Thank you.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I don't think I have ever seen anything like this .....

Here is a man, Joe Paterno, who was held in the highest esteem by anyone who knew who he was or what he was about. He was the face of Penn State.

In the blink of an eye, he has become the embodiment of every man's fear that he won't do the right thing when faced with moral and ethical challenges. After a life of essentially doing what appeared to be just that, he has been reduced, and rightfully so, to an outcast for failing to do what was right. He joins jim tressel.

McQueary has suffered the same fate if not to a lesser degree, because he never rose as high as Paterno did. Former PSU President Spanier and Director Curley, likewise. I find this all pretty stunning and amazing and any other word you can come up with to describe unbelievable.

I look in the rear view mirror at my own life, with this event as a flashlight on it, and conclude there are times I have not done what I could have done. Maybe the scale of failure does not match that of failing to protect innocent children but I could have done a better job in influencing an outcome to be more positive than the one that occurred.

My hope is that everyone close to this sad tale will, and as a result of it, recommit themselves to becoming engaged when it is necessary to do so to protect the interests of those that are unable to protect themselves. This includes children, the disadvantaged, the poor and those that are suffering from whatever evils humans are capable of inflicting on other humans ..... that is one of the central messages in all of this, among others.

[hack]

Yikes. It's amazing how much can be said about this, and then Orwell's brilliant line is used and instantly I wonder why didn't I think of it earlier? ``Power corrupts.'' Two words is enough.

[entropy]

NEW YORK (AP) -- Jerry Sandusky said in an interview with NBC that he is innocent of the child sex abuse charges that have rocked Penn State and cost coach Joe Paterno his job, though the former defensive coordinator acknowledged he "horsed around" and touched kids.

In a telephone interview, scheduled to be aired Monday night on NBC News' "Rock Center," Sandusky responded, "No," when Bob Costas asked if he was a pedophile.

"I am innocent of those charges," the 67-year-old Sandusky said. "... I could say that I have done some of those things. I have horsed around with kids I have showered after workouts. I have hugged them and I have touched their legs without intent of sexual contact."

Sandusky, once considered Paterno's heir apparent, is charged with sexually abusing eight boys over a 15-year span, with several of the alleged assaults occurring on Penn State property. Athletic director Tim Curley and Penn State vice president Gary Schultz are charged with perjury, and Paterno and president Graham Spanier were fired for not doing enough after Sandusky was accused of assaulting a young boy in the showers of the campus football complex in 2002.

The interview with Costas was Sandusky's first public comment on the charges. He had previously maintained his innocence through his attorney.

The Associated Press has made several efforts to reach Sandusky by phone and through his attorney, but messages haven't been returned.

A spokesman for Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly declined to comment on the interview, citing the active investigation.

Asked if there was anything he did do wrong, Sandusky said, "I shouldn't have showered with those kids."

When Sandusky retired in 1999, at just 55, he cited his desire to devote more time to The Second Mile, a charity he founded in 1977 to help at-risk kids. According to a grand jury report, however, Sandusky was a sexual predator who used the charity and his Penn State connections to prey on young boys.

Though he was not particularly close with Paterno, he remained a familiar sight around the Penn State football complex. He was given an office in the East Area Locker building, across the street from the football building, as part of his retirement package, and would bring Second Mile kids around the football facilities.

Wide receivers coach Mike McQueary, then a graduate assistant, told the grand jury he saw Sandusky sodomizing a boy about 10 in a shower at the Nittany Lions' practice center in March 2002. McQueary did not go to police but instead told Paterno, Curley and Schultz, although it is not clear how detailed of a description he gave.

Schultz, in turn, notified Spanier.

Paterno is not the target of any legal investigation, but he has conceded he should have done more. He and Spanier were fired because trustees felt they had not done enough after the 2002 incident.

The interview came on a day when the president of The Second Mile resigned. Jack Raykovitz, a practicing psychologist who had led the group for 28 years, said he hoped his departure would help restore faith in the group's mission. The Second Mile also announced it had hired Philadelphia's longtime district attorney as its new general counsel.

Separately, the Big Ten has decided to take Paterno's name off its championship trophy. League commissioner Jim Delany said that it is "inappropriate" to keep Paterno's name on the trophy that will be awarded Dec. 3 to the winner of the conference's first title game.

The trophy had been named the Stagg-Paterno Championship Trophy. Paterno had more wins (409) than any major college coach while football pioneer Amos Alonzo Stagg won 319 games in 57 years at the University of Chicago.

The trophy will now be called the Stagg Championship Trophy.

[geo weidl]

Any one watch cnn with anderson cooper last night? Pretty intense dsicussion with the former attorney for micheal jackson on.

[lineygoblue]

Re the Sandusky interview:

There's too much smoke for there not to be a fire.