The Rest of College Football

[hack]

No he won't. He'll be a mediocre coach with talent he can handle as opposed to being a mediocre coach with talent he can't handle. Normally, you want a coach who can put his players in a position to look good. Michigan has to aim for the reverse thanks to this guy and the lack of a meritocracy on Hoke's staff.

[WM Wolverine]

In the strictly rumor category, not much optimism for Toussaint to return in '13.

[hack]

Oh yeah? That's a shame. Just a few days ago mgoblog reported he was spotted running...

[Hannibal]

Lofty expectations for a true freshman.

Not really, given how much our depth chart sucks. 15 carries a game for 13 games at 5.2 yards per carry gets you 1000 yards.

[lineygoblue]

In the strictly rumor category, not much optimism for Toussaint to return in '13.

Brady Hoke said just this week that Toussaint would not participate in spring practice, but was running again. I wouldn't write him off yet.

[hodgkal]

What exactly was Touissant's injury. Never saw it described in the media. I assume it was a fracture of some sort.

[Jeff Buchanan]

FX, distal 1/3 tib/fib (I believe it was an open FX - although there was no confirmation in print, I saw the close-up at mgoblog that was up for about 8h after the game before it was taken down. Photographed with someone's phone camera). It was much like the Theisman, career ending injury but I think it was higher than Joe's by 8 cms or so.

[Mike]

He's done. Bring in the next guy.

[entropy]

Go ahead and read all 238 pages of the Paterno family report, if you're so inclined. People who believe Joe Paterno's statue should still be standing in Happy Valley probably will, and feel pretty good about it at the end.

The summary weighs in at just four pages and does its job of giving Paterno a posthumous cleansing, too. Turns out he was a trusting sort who knew nothing about anything - and no one else did, either.

Or just read this headline and save yourself a lot of time: Critique of the Freeh Report: The Rush to Injustice Regarding Joe Paterno.

Pretty much sums it up, though widow Sue will go on Katie Couric's show Monday to make sure everyone understands. A year after his death, the campaign to resuscitate Joe Paterno's name is under way with a hefty document that savages the Freeh report implicating Paterno as a silent enabler of Jerry Sandusky as "rank speculation, innuendo and rhetoric."

Was there any other way this was going to turn out? Months in the making and paid for by the Paterno family, this is as much a public relations campaign as it is an answer to accusations against him.

You have a former FBI director; we'll top you with a former attorney general. You say JoePa knew things and conspired to keep them silent, we'll say there was no conspiracy at all.

At times the defense of Paterno is almost laughable, such as this from former FBI profiler Jim Clemente: "Paterno, like everyone else who knew Sandusky, simply fell victim to effective `grooming,'" Clemente wrote.

Utter hogwash. Paterno himself would have probably said the same thing if he was as honest with himself as the family contends he was with others.

There are no excuses for not following up on Mike McQueary description of the sickening things he saw in the locker room showers of the Lasch Football Building. No way of getting around the fact Sandusky was allowed to hang around the locker room for years after that, molesting who knows how many other young boys.

And no special dispensation for any of it simply because Paterno was a coaching legend who ran not only a football program, but a university and a town.

Not that you can blame the family for trying. The legacy that Paterno so carefully built up over 46 years as head football coach at Penn State was left in tatters by the scandal, and they're trying desperately to restore his good name.

What they don't understand is that Joe Paterno is not the real victim here. What he lost in the final months of his life surely pains the family, but it was the cult of Paterno itself that created the atmosphere that allowed a monster like Sandusky to roam freely.

The young boys who were sexually abused by Sandusky are the true victims. They're the ones who pay every day of their lives, while trying their best to erase terrible scars that just won't go away.

Sadly, no one can write a report giving them back the innocence Sandusky stole while Paterno reigned supreme at State College.

If you believe the Paterno family report - and it is an impressive, though flawed document - former FBI director Louis Freeh acted as "judge, jury and executioner" when he was hired by Penn State to deliver the definitive report on the involvement of the university and its officers in the Sandusky scandal. Freeh concluded last July that four of the most powerful people at Penn State - including Paterno - failed to protect children from Sandusky for more than a decade as part of an effort to protect the university and its reputation.

"That bell can never be unrung, but the many associated errors can be corrected," the Paterno report states.

Just what those errors are is a bit unclear, though former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh took particular offense in his portion of the report claims by Freeh that Paterno did not have empathy for the safety of children. Not only did Paterno like children, Thornburgh wrote, but made sure to participate in a Penn State dance marathon charity for children with cancer and was a supporter of the Special Olympics.

So Paterno wasn't some kind of monster after all. Glad we could get that cleared up.

The bottom line is the Freeh report wasn't perfect. It jumped to some conclusions, and took some liberties that would not hold up in court.

That's what prosecutors do, but it's important to note that Penn State has implemented a majority of the changes recommended in the report. The NCAA waited just 10 days after its release to impose landmark sanctions on Penn State that include $60 million in fines and a four-year postseason ban on football.

Nothing in the Paterno report is going to change that. If Freeh was the prosecutor, Thornburgh and others are the defense attorneys, trying their best to declare Paterno innocent in the court of public opinion.

But the bottom line of the Freeh report was accurate. There was a core of top university officials that knew things and didn't act.

And there were children who paid for it. Young boys who paid dearly because the people in charge didn't stop Sandusky when they could.

The Paternos may find it hard to swallow because they can't reconcile it to the man they knew, the man who over the years became a near deity in State College. And certainly some people will agree with them that Paterno was the scapegoat for a scandal, an old man railroaded and unceremoniously dumped by the very university he loved and served so ably on the football field.

Unfortunately for them, the statue that once stood outside the football stadium is not coming back.

And neither is Paterno's reputation.

----

Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlberg(at)ap.org or HTTP://TWITTER.COM/TIMDAHLBERG

[entropy]

Where current NFL players went to HS...

California - 268
Texas - 235
Florida - 222
Georgia - 113
Ohio - 101
Louisiana - 75
Pennsylvania - 68
New Jersey - 66
Virginia - 59
North Carolina - 56
Alabama - 55
South Carolina - 50
Illinois - 50
Michigan - 49
Mississippi - 37
Tennessee - 33
Maryland - 31
New York - 31
Arizona - 30
Washington - 27
Missouri - 25
Indiana - 24
Connecticut - 24
Arkansas - 24
Oklahoma - 24
Wisconsin - 22
Kansas - 19
Kentucky - 19
Nebraska - 18
Minnesota - 16
Utah - 15
Hawaii - 15
Nevada - 14
Oregon - 14
Iowa - 14
Massachusetts - 12
Montana - 10
Canada - 10
Colorado - 10
D.C. - 10
Idaho - 7
Wyoming - 5
New Mexico - 5
West Virginia - 3
South Dakota - 3
American Samoa - 3
Australia - 3
Delaware - 3
Germany - 2
Alaska - 2
Barbados - 1
Maine - 1
New Hampshire - 1
North Dakota - 0
Rhode Island - 0
Vermont - 0

[entropy]

from the washington post..

“People think we only care about the money. Of course we care about money. Look at Tennessee,” Dodds said.
According to figures released by the university, Longhorn Foundation donations have gone up every year since 2007, with more than $36 million last year.

But frustrating Texas fans further was the rise of longtime rival Texas A&M to national prominence in its first year in the SEC.
The Aggies, who many assumed would struggle to make the transition to college football’s premiere conference, nearly turned the league upside down behind quarterback Johnny Manziel, the first freshman to win the Heisman Trophy.
That Texas tried to recruit Manziel to play safety is just another burr in the backside for Longhorns fans who have watched quarterbacks Garrett Gilbert, David Ash and Case McCoy struggle the last three seasons.
Even McCombs brought up Manziel as a misfire.
“I’m sure they would like to have some choices to make over again,” McCombs said. “We’ve got good players, they just weren’t good enough.”
Texas’ struggles on the field may be hurting recruiting. The Longhorns signed 15 players Wednesday, but this year’s class was notable because national recruiting experts didn’t rate it among the best in the country.
Brown, long considered a dominant recruiter, was burned by several players who committed to Texas only to change their mind. Most notable was the 11th-hour defection of top-rated defensive lineman A’shawn Robinson to Alabama.
“It may be disappointing on the day it happens, but you want people that will look you in the eye and tell you the truth and you want people that want to be at your school,” Brown said.
The men’s and women’s basketball programs are struggling through their own downturns.
The men are just 10-12 in coach Rick Barnes 15th season and are floundering near the bottom of the Big 12. Unless the Longhorns stage a huge turnaround over the final month of the season, they appear likely to miss the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1998. The same goes for the women, who are 9-12 in a rough first season for coach Karen Aston.
While the losing irritates fans, university regents were embarrassed by revelations that two of its most prominent coaches had inappropriate relationships with students.
In October, a former women’s track athlete told school officials she had a relationship with track coach Bev Kearney in 2002. Kearney, who won six national championships with the Longhorns, was suspended in November while the claim was being investigated and resigned on Jan. 5. The school has said it was in the process of firing Kearney when she resigned.
Last week, the school and assistant football coach Major Applewhite acknowledged he had engaged in inappropriate conduct with a student during the team trip to the 2009 Fiesta Bowl. Applewhite’s pay was frozen for a year and he was ordered to undergo counseling, but he also has been promoted since that incident and is now the offensive coordinator with play-calling duties next season.
“In a program this big, you’re going to have some bad news. You just are,” Dodds said. “It’s going to happen, so you need to handle it right. That’s what we do. Get it out and you’ve got to live with it. People will react to it and you can’t control how they react.”
Dodds won’t discuss the Kearney and Applewhite cases in detail but they may dog the program for some time. Kearney’s attorney has suggested she was treated unfairly and that she may sue the university.
Trapolino said that even if things don’t turn around, she’ll keep going to the games and giving money.
“I’m a fan. I’m not going to stop going to games. I may voice my opinion more. If that falls on deaf ears because I give money, oh well,” Trapolino said.

[THE_WIZARD_]

B-O-O H-O-O

[hodgkal]

Thanks JB for the Touissant injury update. I wondered why those details were never publicised. From my (limited) orthopedic background I recall that fractures of the mid-shaft of the tibia (main lower leg bone, or shin bone) are the slowest to heal of all bones of the body. The reason is the relatively poor blood supply to that part of the bone. When you think about it that is one of the few bones in the body that is not totally encased in soft tissue, mainly muscle. I remember a patient who had been in a cast for 18 months with such a fracture that had still not healed.

[Dr. Strangelove]

B1G is adding at least one conference game. Still hasn't decided on 9 or 10

Other changes coming:

More Night games in November

Conference games earlier in the year

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/college/chi-big-ten-conference-football-20130211,0,2192689.story

[entropy]

Yea on the night games