When you ask yourself why Penn State basketball is consistently mediocre, remember that news about the transfer of Penn State's backup quarterback received hundreds of comments, while the story about Penn State's hoops struggle with in-state rival Temple received 6. 

Why did Jon Crispin transfer from Penn State the year after the team made the sweet 16 in the tournament and he was poised to be the next leader?  Because he knew that, at least for the foreseeable future, the backup quarterback at Penn State was going to be more popular than the best basketball player.  

There are scores of other associated reasons why Penn State basketball is severely handicapped--a rural campus for an urban sport, no great tradition, a cold, impersonal facility--but the underlying one is simple: the students and alumni as a whole don't give two shakes about the hoops program compared to the football program.  It's not the administration's fault, or the coaching staff's or the athletic office's, it's ours.  

Not sure how many of you caught 60 minutes' interview with Barack Obama tonight, but he spoke again about wanting to create a college football playoff.   

He got more specific, saying that it should be 8 teams. And he said, "I don't know any serious fan of college football who has disagreed with me on this. So, I'm going to throw my weight around a little bit. I think it's the right thing to do."

If you're not too familiar with Obama, you should check out the 60 minutes interview, probably on cbs online, because its pretty good.  In any event, it seems to me that his willingness to "throw his weight around a little bit" make it fairly inevitable that a college football playoff happens, probably sooner rather than later.  

And, though it seems to just be a genuine act of a sports fan, this could prove to be political genius.  If he manages to use the President's "bully pulpit" to get a college football playoff, millions of college football fans, who might now be ambivalent about him, are going to have a reason to like him.

Here's an si story about it: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/football/ncaa/11/15/ap.fbc.obama.footballpl.ap/index.html 

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Being an active member of the BSD community, some of you may know some things about me (I’m fond of old dogs; my wife’s an Iowa alum; I think Calder Way’s all that), but you probably don’t know something else.  Before I earned my BA from dear old state, I went to the University of Michigan for the first semester of my freshman year in college.

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I just bet $20 on Penn State to win the big ten; if they do, I win $120.  Now, I clearly don't think Penn State winning the Big Ten is a lock, otherwise I would've bet more than $20. On the other hand, I do think they've got a good chance to do it, in fact, I'd wager they have a better than 6 to 1 chance of winning the conference. Here's why:

1. The offensive line.  Penn State's offensive line will be the best in the big ten, barring injury.  Despite, or maybe even because of, the increasing reliance on the spread offense throughout the big ten, the conference is still the premier smash-mouth football conference in the country.  The offensive line is the most important aspect of any football team at any level; in the big ten, that importance is magnified.

2. The defensive line. Like the o-line, Penn State's d-line will dominate games.  They'll give the linebackers opportunities to make big plays, and pressure opposing quarterbacks, bailing the defensive secondary out until that group gets going.  Moe Evans is going to be fierce; he's got an outside chance of winning the Bednarik Award.

3. The Posse, Phil Taylor, and Sean Lee.  While I'm more devastated by Sean Lee's injury than most, and as susceptible as any to the disappointment that comes from reading about off-field trouble by Penn State players in the paper, I think all of these let-downs might actually lift the team up.  Strength often results from adversity, and the players in the locker room right now have a lot to prove about themselves.  As athletes and competitors, they know no better place to prove themselves than on the field.  My bet is that Sciorotto, DC and the new linebackers and defensive tackles are going to look at this season as a chance to prove the world wrong.  I bet they will.

4. Joe Paterno.  And finally, it's going to be Joe's last year. Maybe or maybe not, but I think that these guys know that this is Joe's last best chance to have a winner.  Maybe someone's telling them that and maybe somebody isn't, but I think the team  leaders realize the potential importance of this season for Paterno.  Moreover, I think Joe realizes the importance of it, too, and he's going to make damned sure that he puts his team in the best possible situation to win.

Now, can anyone convince me to lay on the 50-1 odds of winning the national championship?

I just wanted everyone to know that you can share your feeback with ESPN's obmudsman online. 

Here's the deal with the ombudsman: "Ombudsman Le Anne Schreiber is the public's representative to ESPN, offering independent examination and analysis of ESPN's media outlets. The former New York Times sports editor and author will critique decision-making, coverage and presentation of news, issues and events on ESPN television and other media."

I read her fairly regularly and she seems exceedingly fair. 

Anyway, we're kind of stuck with espn, so I think it makes to let them know what we think of the Outside the Lines piece and it's journalistic integrity or lack thereof.

Here's the link to give her feedback: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?id=2826900

Given the recent posts about out of conference schedules and getting season tickets in the nittany lion club, I was reminded of this Forbes' list of most valuable college football teams.

The article: http://www.forbes.com/sportsbusiness/2007/11/20/notre-dame-fooball-biz-sports-cx_ps_1120collegeball.html

Penn State's not mentioned until the slideshow: http://www.forbes.com/2007/11/20/notre-dame-fooball-biz-sports-cx_ps_1120collegeball_slide.html?thisSpeed=30000

By my count, PSU comes in at 12th nationally, though I think we're getting screwed by their system, which values contributes to the schools academic programs above contributions to the athletic programs (and for better or worse, all psu football revenue goes to athletics, I think). We do have a greater "profit" than a few of the schools that have a higher "value" than Penn State.

I can't remember if this was posted back when the list came out.  

Admittedly, the logic behind this is at least as shaky as that behind recruiting rankings, but hey, it's July, and it's just another reminder, that at the end of the day, college football has a whole heck of a lot to do with money.

Lucky for me I'm headed to State College for a bachelor party this weekend, and I'll get to watch the Pens/Flyers game right in the middle of the rivalry.

Does anyone have a recomendation for where to watch the game?  Sports Cafe would have definitely been my go-to location, but last I heard, it's been closed indefinitely...and I don't really know which other bars in downtown have good tvs, etc.

thanks.

Bumped from the diaries...

Something many fans (including this one) find frustrating is the importance of rankings in college football.  The end of the season rankings have determined national championships in college football forever.  In 1994, the shaky logic of those rankings (Tom Osborne's a good guy, so let's make sure he gets a championship) cost an undefeated Penn State team a national championship of our own. Even in today's BCS world, rankings still help to determine who gets to play for the national championship. And while the implications of year-end rankings annoy me, I'm equally disturbed by preseason rankings. (It's 2007, I haven't seen any team play, but hey, they're Michigan, so they've gotta be in the top 5, right?) I really dislike the fact that, even though no one has seen any team play anything more than a scrimmage, the stage gets set for the rankings for the rest of season. At least the BCS rankings don't come out for a number of weeks.

Although I'm no fan of pre-season and post-season (and hey, why not, mid-season) rankings, I generally regard them as a necessary evil.  I'll even admit that for as long as I can remember, I've gotten excited to read SI's preseason college football issue, to see where the "experts" have everybody positioned.

But now, in the internet age, the most-recent rankings are also the silliest, most over-analyzed piece of trash that sullies today's otherwise enjoyable discussions.  Of course, I'm referring to recruiting rankings.

Recruiting rankings are silly for fifty different reasons.  Despite the fact that people with more statistical acumen than me can come up with various records "proving" the accuracy of the rankings, ranking recruits is bunk. I think the most convincing--and timely--way to illustrate why no one should put too much stock in the dubious logic of college football recruiting rankings is the difficulty that the NFL has in determining the ability of prospects, despite having considerably more resources.  

The story in yesterday's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about the Steeler's relative ability to perform well in the draft remind me of how poor the NFL is at evaluating talent... http://postgazette.com/pg/08115/876100-66.stm
"Just consider the No. 1 overall picks in the NFL draft the past 10 years. Of those, one is already out of the league (Tim Couch), another might never return (Michael Vick) and two are with different teams (Courtney Brown, David Carr). That doesn't even include quarterback Alex Smith of the San Francisco 49ers, who is still trying to determine the path on which he will embark.
That's half of the past 10 overall No. 1s who either have been washouts or are still waiting to have some significant impact with their respective teams. And those are the top players selected."
Indeed, even on the Steelers, a franchise that makes smart draft decisions, the team MVP in each of the past two years--James Harrison and Willie Parker--were UNDRAFTED.  

I think it would be hard for anyone to say that the NFL does a great job of ranking draft prospects, and yet, the NFL has a ton of advantages over places like scouts and rivals that try to rank college football recruits.  

First of all, NFL prospects are, for the most part, fully developed physically, while high school juniors and seniors are still likely to grow another inch or three and put on more weight.  Secondly, college football competition is easier to evaluate than high school football.  We might argue over whether or not the Big Ten is better than the SEC, but at least we have an idea that those conferences are pretty similar, and better than the MAC, which is good, but not great.  Compare that to trying to understand what it means to rush for 1500 yards in the WPIAL AAAA with rushing for 1500 yards in single A Mississippi.  Who the hell knows which is more challenging--and by how much.  In short, the NFL has more information--and way more resources in terms of time, money and personnel, than scouts and rivals--and they still get it wrong as often as they get it right.  

Listen over the next few weeks.  While everybody will try to rank the draft, they'll usually qualify their ranking by saying, you can't accurately rank this draft for at least two years.  

Nevertheless, Saturday and Sunday are great days to drink in the afternoon, remember players' past, and ponder their future.  But let's not sully those days--or decision days in college football--by placing too much stock in how so-called experts claim to rank one team against another.