GP1

Yoda wouldn't put too much thought into him. Williams is the clone brought in to act as a pawn for a short while.

It depends on the plan. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I'm Ok with a player starting as a freshman and taking a bit of a beating as long as it doesn't destroy him. Learning from the bench is nonsense. That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger. The long term plan for a college athlete who is capable of starting his freshman year shouldn't be a gradual improvement process over for years....that's for high school kids and small thinkers. A player capable of starting as a freshman should have a big jump in his ability between his freshman and soph seasons with gradual improvement after those seasons, but not the big jump. The freshman will start after the ooc schedule is complete. It's a lot easier to play against the mac than Tennessee or UCF. He'll still have some bumps along the way, but he'll be better off for it in the long run.

By the beginning of MAC play? That's what they are shooting for. One year wonder? If by "one year wonder", you mean sacrificial lamb for the first few games, I would say yes. In many ways, it is all the kid could hope for. He was a back up at a I-AA school and he would get to start some games, one against an SEC school in front of a huge crowd. I wish him luck. I can think of worse ways to end a career. You never know though....

Article I wonder if Rule #1 was: Don't hide the food under your shirt and try to get away. We now have a nationally known coach who knows what to do and they have stories about going to the store. I like where this is going.

I'm not certain at what point something becomes felony fraud, but I have to believe passing this event off as a competitive college football game might. I'm all for you guys going to a game and having a good time, but I hate it you are having your money stolen from you in the process. I might go to Knoxville, tailgate, look at the Volunteer Navy and go to a bar and watch other game. But then again, I'll probably just stay home and watch it on TV. Have fun and be safe.

The greater the problem, the cooler heads have to be. Personally, I've always been against less ncaa involvement in just about everything. If the answer to a question is, "The ncaa needs to step in an do something", then it was a stupid question.

This Week The best 2:19 discussion on this issue was on This Week yesterday morning. I agree with everything everyone said. Video is at the bottom.

"Jopa and his superiors". I agree. JoPa is dead. Sandusky is in jail. The other two are not far behind Sandusky in going to jail. The culture that caused the mentality that cause something like this to happen was widespread. A culture can't perform a crime, only people. The offenders list is pretty small though. I don't see a reason for the death penalty for a small group of offenders. Those who will be negatively impacted by the death penality will be broad.

In an indirect way, the money for the games is going to go to the victims. PSU is going to be shelling out tens of millions of dollars to victims over the next several years, as well they should. They are going to be shelling out the money in a time when state institutions around the country are short on money. One way or another the victims will be getting part of the gate. BirdZip is correct. PSU should suspend their season next year, but they can't. They can't because over the past decade, they have been involved in the same arms race as every other school. Arena after arena. Stadium after stadium. Those structures have to be kept up and the football team is the organization contributing the most to the "building process". Let's do another exercise. For every action, there is a reaction. Who else could be negatively impacted by PSU not playing next year. I can think of one big organization that would be hugely negatively impacted. Every year, PSU students participate in Thon. It is the largest student run philanthropy in the world and benefits child cancer victims. Think not having seven home games a year for one or two years might impact the fundraising of this organization? Is that what we want when we talk about penalties and the desire for people to impose them? I don't think people hate child molestation as much as they fear it for many, many reasons. Fear comes before hate. I hate to bring up Yoda on a serious subject, but a lot can be learned from Star Wars..."Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. I sense much fear in you." People want the death penalty because they fear it will happen again and a statement needs to be made about it. I have news for everyone. There were child molesters 1,000 years ago. There will be child molesters 1,000 years from now. We can only try to lessen this problem. Do we really want to get to the point where our fear and hate leads to children with cancer suffering? I'd rather the school try to use this opportunity to do something good.

Penalties don't deter. Penalties, by their very nature, are a punishment for wrong doing. They face backward. If PSU is given the death penalty for two years, who is penalized? It seems to me that those directly responsible are either dead or on their way to being on the wrong side of prison bars. Seems to me that is better reason for not allowing this to happen than a football team not playing for a year or two. In the game of prison vs ncaa death penalty, prison wins. Penalize the fans of PSU? Why? For having childish views of college football and placing someone in higher standing than they should be? Every school should get the death penalty at that point. There are lots of ways to deter people without punishing those who have done nothing wrong. Those are the solutions that need to be explored.

This thread is about the issues at PSU. Let's keep it that way.

Article Two starters remain on team with no scholarship for the summer. Sound like a tough penalty to me. BTW, Stoneburners parents are wealthy and could have paid his way through OSU without a scholarship. If he needs money for summer classes, he will have no problem. One back-up kicked off team. Tough decision for Urban. I'm sure #2 linebackers are hard to find. Starters help a team win...they stay on the team. Back-ups can be replaced and get kicked off. If someone is going to try to prove a point while not risking losing, kicking off the back-up is the way to go. When the Zips had off the court problems with their basketball team last year, I said KD should do the exactly same thing. Urban made the right decision here and should get a pat on the back for keeping his priorities straight. Winning comes first. Integrity comes second. This thread is about Paterno. Let's keep it that way.

Non criminal matters.

A crime was committed on University property....That's up to the legal system to deal with. What happened in a tatoo parlor is an interesting way to put it...or not put it. It happened in a tatoo parlor with a guy who was later found guilty of Federal drug charges, players getting free stuff from the drug dealer in violation of ncaa rules and a coach who knew about the drug charges and lied to his boss to win games. The ncaa has clear rules as to what happened in the tatoo parlor and those rules apply to getting free things. It doesn't have clear rules about this. Once it crosses this line, where does it end? tOSU just had ANOTHER player break the law. Third this off season. Urban is easily going to break his Florida record of arrests at this rate. Anyhow, should the ncaa step in about that? Where does it end? One argument people are going to bring up is, "The NFL rules on things like this all the time." The NFL has 32 teams and those teams have fewer players on them than a college football team. There is a greater legal connection between NFL teams and the NFL. An NFL team can't be an nfl team and not be in the nfl. A college can have sports teams and not be in the ncaa. How many college football teams? How many basketball teams? How many baseball teams?, etc. will they now have to make rulings on legal matters about. Is their staff big enough to handle the additional work? Do we want the ncaa to have a staff to deal with this knowing they aren't even good at the money matters they handle? It's easy to say, "they HAVE to do something about this". It would be easy to say that about every legal issue that comes up in the 300+ schools in the ncaa. Where does it stop? People need to do something about this issue. The Board of Trustees at PSU is starting to take steps to try and make sure nothing like this happens again. This is a criminal issue that involves a state university and the legal system. That's where it should be handled. Civil cases will soon be filed in court and that is where this issue should be handled. The state saying something is wrong and putting people in jail means more than the ncaa and the idiots who run it saying it, because the state speaks for everyone. What is happening at PSU right now is worse than what the ncaa could do to them. This legal process is going to take years to resolve and the ncaa should not get in the middle of it. For whatever reason, Americans have come to believe the ncaa is more that what it really is. It is a club that schools join in order to provide some structure to their athletic departments and conferences. It's the Chamber of Commerce for college athletics.

This was on Every Day Should Be Saturday. There has been a lot of talk about taking the Paterno statue down. Good or bad, leave it up. There are statues of horrible people all over the world. Everyone has the right to look at something and make their own evaluation as to what it is and what it stands for. People do this every day when they go to museums. Leave it up. *AND THOUGH WE'VE SAID IT BEFORE: leave the statue up. You were the ones who put it up there, and you don't need to waste time and money taking it down. History is history, and as nice as it would be to confine the nasty bits to the dustbin, this one weighs too much to move. You made it, you live with it, and you try to explain that to whomever cares to ask about it. We spent a lot of our youth in a town with a confederate soldier on a pillar in the middle of a town square, and when our children ask who that is, we'll say "a poor person who was probably as racist and ignorant as his neighbors, and angry enough at life to be duped by shitbag plantation owners into running headlong into a line of cannons. He probably regrets a lot of it, and now most people driving by think he's a Duane Allman, Tim Richmond, or Keith Whitley memorial or something. Let's not have you go to war, ever, okay?" For the record, our Civil War ancestor deserted, most likely because the food sucked and he ran out of underwear. We've read the letters. He complains about the food a lot, so we're pretty certain we're related by blood and by name. We salute his strategic acumen, and hope he got some decent country ham when he got home.

The ncaa isn't a brand like the nfl is a brand. There are hundreds of schools in the ncaa. If they are going to start ruling on every law violation every single "athlete-student" makes, they will have to at least double the number of employees the ncaa has. Do we really need more ncaa employees? No.

Deadspin makes some good serious points (sports writers are easy to make fun of. nobody does it because they would have to make fun of themselves.) and then does something funny.

Do nothing is my vote so I didn't vote. Keep out of it isn't an option for me as I believe the NCAA could require schools to highlight potential problem issues such as this. There is something or them to do, but not one of the options. The NCAA is set up to give out penalties to schools where money exchanges hands. They do a terrible job of it. The NCAA is not set up, nor they have the moral standing, to issue rulings on matters such as the PSU case. I can see them actually being worse than they are at giving penalties for money if they give out penalties for moral issues. It starts a slippery slope for a car being driven by morons. The folks guilty at PSU are paying through the legal system. Paterno is dead. The NCAA should do nothing about this issue until the legal matters surrounding this case close. It could be years. By the time it is over, PSU will be what it was going to be sooner or later after Paterno retired even if the Sandusky issue didn't happen. PSU is going to be in worse shape than having the death penalty...they are going to become The University of Illinois Version 2.0. They are dead either way.

Agreed on all counts. Size matters....I've been saying it for years.

Deadspin at its best again. Anyone remember the old X Files show? Fox Mulder always had that sign on his office wall that said, "I Want To Believe". That's what a lot of sports fans do with the people they see on TV. For many PSU fans, Paterno could never be a guy who covered something up because he wanted to continue to coach and wanted to win more games. For OSU fans, Tressel was just a guy protecting his players and not someone who needed those guys to win games so he covered everything up to keep them on the field. It's the either/or high school debate club nature of media and society these days. Deadspin has a lot on it that is funny. Normally they are at their best when they are taking a crap on someone who deserves it. Every once in a while, they do something serious and it almost is always great. This is a good example. Why? It presents the "and" issue that someone can do good deeds and do something really self serving and just plain wrong. I love a good "and" article.

We have had plenty of plans in the MAC. The problem is, the plan is usually as follows: 1. Hold hand grenade with both hands. One hand holding the release handle closed and the other grasping the release pin with one finger. 2. Pull out release pin. 3. Allow the release handle to open. 4. Throw pin. As an example, the MAC whores itself out to ESPN and plays on Tuesday and Wednesday nights in front of a few hundred people. Leaders of the MAC really believe this is good for the Conference so they throw the pin because they don't know any better. UTSA, App. State, etc. don't care about TV and only desire to put a good product on the field and they play in front of tens of thousands of people. MAC leaders believe in the illusion they might be able to create. App State, UTSA believe in the reality of what they have and maximize their ability the best they can and lots of fans respond to that. The UTSAs of the world are willing to throw the grenade. Even if they don't hit anything, they have tried their best and at least didn't blow themselves up. The reality is as follows. If the MAC or 90% of their athletic directors believe something will work, the opposite is true. They have so overthought things, they no longer know what a good decision or bad decision is. They only believe more is better. By more, they mean more stadiums and more lines on their resumes saying what they did to build those stadiums. More teams in the conference. More indoor training arenas. What makes me sad is the MAC can be everything the Southern Conference is and better if they would just put a better product on the field at a time when people can go to the games. They play mostly afternoon games. Every SoCon school is in a state that has at least one BCS team in it just like the MAC. In those states, the fans of the BCS teams are just as passionate about their BCS team as they are in the midwest. Those schools also have alumni that follow both their SoCon school and a BCS school. Many SoCon schools get huge crowds and aren't located anywhere near a major city. Anyone know where App State is or Western Carolina? You damn near need a mule to get you there. We have tons of excuses for why we fall short. They pull up their pants and get to work putting a good Conference together. I don't hate the MAC. In fact, it could be a much better conference and I wish that was the case. I absolutely can't stand the leadership of the Conference and their self serving ways that are complicating our ability to be a better Conference.

People in the south are crazy about college football. I went to a game last year at App State and it was completely sold out. In fact, they sold standing room only tickets. They were playing UTChat that day for first place in their conference. Parking in the town of Boone was $25 and nobody complains because it isn't about the cost of the game, but the game itself. One of the best times I've ever had going to a college football game.

I don't know if this is the question. I think a better question is...Coming off the bench, would Zeke be able to rest the starting center with productive minutes on the defensive end? The answer to that question is yes. However a lot rests on whether or not he can get with the right team. I don't see Zeke as a draft pick. If an NBA team is going to take a chance on a "work in progress", it is usually a player who didn't play four years in college. The NBA draft is very short and it is hard to take a chance with a player with so few choices. We haven't even scratched the surface of Zeke's NBA prospects. The real questions are centered around which teams need center help because free agents are signed on needs, not the future. I'd look for a team that needs immediate help rather than a team looking for a long term investment. I have no idea who those teams will be in two years because I don't follow the nba.

If losing successful seniors matters, and I think it does in mid major basketball, UNCA will be a little down this coming season. Dickey, Primm and Stephenson were 1, 2 and 3 last year in scoring. All three were seniors. These three were in the top four in minutes played. One guy can be replaced....two, maybe....all three is very difficult in the short term. Still a solid program, but no X. X is a solid program in a very good mid major conference. In fact, the A10 would be a conference I'd like to see the Zips compete in more. Charting our success against programs like X really tells us where we are in realation to other mid major programs. 20 wins is good. 20 wins with wins against programs like X means more.

They can show dirt track right after the MLS game of the week on CBS when that happens....