You have to watch this. The outrage from the local press in attendance is absolutely incredible. Did these “journalists” not read the grand jury investigation?

I’ve never liked Penn State fans. In my opinion, they’re second only to Notre Dame on the smug-o-meter. That’s why I’m so, so surprised by the appalling behavior of a few of their students last night:

Police in riot gear dispersed about 2,000 Penn State students who took to the streets after the ouster of football coach Joe Paterno. Crowds toppled a television news van and at least one photographer was pelted with a rock.

The students flooded downtown State College on Wednesday night for about three hours after Paterno and university president Graham Spanier were fired amid a growing furor linked to their handling of sex abuse allegations against a former assistant football coach.

Officers used pepper spray at times to control the crowd. Some students chanted `We want Joe! We want Joe!” Others kicked in the windows of a toppled news van.

About 100 police officers were downtown, many wearing helmets and carrying pepper spray. State College police said early Thursday they were still gathering information on any possible arrests.

Paterno had announced earlier in the day he planned to retire after the season and expressed remorse for not having done more after he learned of the sex assault allegations.

 

Details here.

So writes Michael McCann of Sports Illustrated:

While Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly says that her office won’t file charges against Joe Paterno for not reporting the alleged child sexual abuse by former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, the 84-year-old coach could eventually face criminal charges for perjury, obstruction of justice and violating the state’s Child Protective Services Law. Paterno could also become a defendant in civil lawsuits filed by Sandusky’s alleged victims. Those lawsuits could allege that Paterno negligently failed to prevent a third party with whom he had a supervisory relationship (Sandusky) from committing abuse.

Perjury and Obstruction of Justice

Under Pennsylvania law, as in other jurisdictions, perjury refers to knowingly lying while under oath. Obstruction of justice describes interference with the administration of justice, such as by concealing evidence or delaying or frustrating a criminal investigation. While Paterno has thus far escaped these criminal charges, his statements and behavior suggest that he remains vulnerable to them. That is particularly evident when considering troubling inconsistencies between Paterno’s testimony to the grand jury that investigated Sandusky and the testimony of Penn State assistant Mike McQueary.

These inconsistencies related to Paterno’s and McQueary’s statements about “Victim 2″ in the grand jury’s statement of facts. According to the grand jury’s findings of fact, McQueary detailed how in 2002 he saw a naked Sandusky sexually abusing a young boy in the showers in the Penn State football locker room. McQueary also testified that he told Paterno what he saw the following day, though it isn’t clear from McQueary’s testimony how explicit he was in his description to Paterno.

After hearing from McQueary, Paterno alerted athletic director Tim Curley. Yet instead of relaying what McQueary claims to have told him, Paterno conveyed a milder and vaguer description. Specifically, Paterno testified under oath that McQueary had said that Sandusky was engaged in fondling or “doing something of a sexual nature” to a boy.

The rest here.

New York Daily News:

Penn State’s trustees have reportedly given university president Graham Spanier two options: quit or be fired.

The Patriot-News of Harrisburg is reporting that the trustees have told Spanier that he must resign Wednesday, or he will be ousted at an emergency meeting scheduled for Wednesday night.

The grand jury report that detailed the allegations against former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky said Spanier was told that Mike McQueary, then a graduate assistant and now the Nittany Lions’ receivers coach and recruiting coordinator, had seen Sandusky with a boy in a Penn State shower in 2002.

According to the report, Spanier said he was not told that the incident involved sexual abuse.

Rumor: To be replaced by Tom Ridge?

No need to put the school’s Big 10 title on the line for something as trivial as child rape. The AP reports:

And the NCAA needs to go after the Penn State football program in some way. If there was ever a definition of a lack of institutional control, this is it.

The end for Paterno? New York Times:

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Joe Paterno’s tenure as coach of the Penn State football team will soon be over, perhaps within days or weeks, in the wake of a sex-abuse scandal that has implicated university officials, according to two people briefed on conversations among the university’s top officials.

And here’s video of an emotional Matt Millen, who is on the board of Sandusky’s charity, talking about his former coach. It’s almost 12 minutes long, but worth it.

Unbelievable. The university, after the allegations about Sandusky became known, banned him from holding his youth-sports clinics at the main campus, but not at a satellite facility:

A former Penn State assistant football coach accused of sexually abusing boys held summer football camps at a satellite campus for six years after he was banned from taking youths onto the university’s main campus by the athletics director and the senior vice president, who have been charged with failing to tell police about him.

Jerry Sandusky was prohibited from holding his youth sports camps on campus in 2002, the year a graduate student claimed to see him assault a child in a locker room shower. But Sandusky held the camps through his Sandusky Associates company from 2000 to 2008 at a satellite campus just outside Erie, Penn State Behrend spokesman Bill Gonda said.

“We provided the facilities for it,” Gonda said Monday. “There were no allegations, no complaints during his tenure here.”

Gonda referred questions about other issues, including whether the school knew about other allegations against Sandusky before allowing the camp to be held there, to officials at the main campus in State College, a four-hour drive southeast of Erie.

And former Penn State star Lavar Arrington has penned an op-ed defending his coach. An excerpt:

My experiences with Coach Sandusky are memories that will stay with me for the rest of my life. I can honestly say that Coach Sandusky was always fun to be around and genuinely cared about us as people. He always made it a point to help guide us in the direction of being better.

He was always very active in trying to help troubled youths and often asked me to take time out of my schedule to spend time with the kids that he would bring around the facility.

I remember distinctly playing soccer games in the locker room with a taped-up towel. It meant a lot to me to help brighten the day of a child who had issues at home. I never saw or felt anything that would’ve made me uncomfortable or even felt that inappropriate things were taking place. For what it’s worth, I too was just a kid back then, why would I think that Jerry of all people could possibly be capable of doing such things?

Call me naive, but being the son of an educator, my level of respect and admiration for Jer, as we called him, was more due to his tireless efforts with the charity group The Second Mile, which was a program that was established to help kids. As for football, I owed my success in college to Jer’s unique ability to identify our strengths and alter his game plans to fit what we all were good at.

Arrington doesn’t get it. If Sandusky is guilty of these charges, then that means Arrington and other players were being used as bait of sorts for Sandusky to find the young boys. Wait until that sinks in.

Yahoo! Sports:

Pennsylvania attorney general Linda Kelly said in a news conference Monday that the Jerry Sandusky child-molestation case is an ongoing investigation but that Penn State football icon Joe Paterno is “not regarded as a target at this point.”

Kelly stopped short of offering the same protection for Penn State president Graham Spanier, declining to answer specific questions about his place in the investigation.

Kelly said Paterno responded as legally obligated when informed, in 2002, by a graduate assistant coach (identified in news reports as current Penn State staffer Mike McQueary) that he witnessed Sandusky sexually assaulting a child in the showers at the Penn State football facility. She said his timely reporting of the incident to his titular superior, athletic director Tim Curley, fulfilled the coach’s legal responsibility.

The rest here.

Paterno should announce his retirement today. Enough already.

Penn State AD Tim Curley, finance VP step down over Sandusky scandal.

This is ugly, and going to get uglier. New York Times:

A former defensive coordinator for the Penn State football team was arrested Saturday on charges of sexually abusing eight boys across a 15-year period. Jerry Sandusky, 67, who had worked with needy children through his Second Mile foundation, was arraigned and released on $100,000 bail after being charged with 40 counts related to sexual abuse of young boys.

Two top university officials — Gary Schultz, the senior vice president for finance and business, and Tim Curley, the athletic director — were charged Saturday with perjury and failure to report to authorities what they knew of the allegations, as required by state law.

“This is a case about a sexual predator who used his position within the university and community to repeatedly prey on young boys,” the Pennsylvania attorney general, Linda Kelly, said in a statement.

Mr. Sandusky was an assistant defensive coach to Joe Paterno, the coach with the most career victories in major college football, who helped propel Penn State to the top tiers of the sport. Until now, the Big Ten university had one of the most sterling images in college athletics, largely thanks to Mr. Paterno and his success in 46 seasons as head coach.

A grand jury said that when Mr. Paterno learned of one allegation of abuse in 2002, he immediately reported it to Mr. Curley. The grand jury did not implicate Mr. Paterno in any wrongdoing, though it was unclear if he ever followed up on his initial conversation with Mr. Curley or tried to alert the authorities himself.

Mr. Sandusky’s lawyer said his client had disputed the allegations that prompted a three-year investigation by the attorney general’s office.

“He has denied the allegations from the outset,” Joseph Amendola, Mr. Sandusky’s lawyer, said in a telephone interview Saturday. “We know the allegations were out there, but we didn’t know what the allegations were. Jerry has mentioned his innocence, and once we are able to go through this, we’ll have more specific responses.”

Mr. Curley and Mr. Schultz, the grand jury found, provided false testimony in discussing their response to the 2002 incident. It further found that Mr. Curley committed perjury in repeatedly denying that he had been told that Mr. Sandusky had engaged in sexual misconduct with a child.

The university president, Graham B. Spanier, who the grand jury said had been made aware of the 2002 incident, said in a statement that he stood behind the two officials.

How do you still support the two officials? Penn State is going to have to clean house after this. And Joe Paterno can consider himself the luckiest man in the world if he somehow comes out of this disgusting mess unscathed.

The rest here.

Dave Teel at the Hampton Roads Daily Press thinks drawing out conference realignment is a loser:

West Virginia wants to bolt the Big East for the Big 12 next year. Big East bylaws require 27 months notice.The Mountaineers, according to CBSSports.com’s Brett McMurphy, are suing for their freedom. Big East commissioner John Marinatto says “a contract is a contract.” Big East staples Syracuse and Pittsburgh are publicly silent but also hope to skirt the 27-month rule as they move to the ACC.

Stalemate? Posturing? Can’t we all just get along? Welcome to the food fight of conference realignment, where no one escapes unstained. The Big East is torqued at West Virginia, Syracuse and Pitt, and depending on what was said behind closed doors, that anger may be absolutely justified. Moreover, the three defections have prompted a reconfiguration of the league that can only be described as tortured. Boise State and Air Force? Houston and SMU? Somewhere Elbridge Gerry (look it up, kids) smiles.

“To put it simply, a contract is a contract,” Marinatto said in his statement. So is marriage. But if your spouse dumps you for another dude and files for divorce, do you still want to cohabitate?       
 

Bleacher Report:

Just when you think it can’t get any worse for the Notre Dame football program it does. Lately it seems like everybody wants to take shots at the program while it is down and now that includes former quarterbacks that played at the school.

Quarterback Joe Montana played three seasons for Notre Dame and threw for over 4,000 yards and 25 touchdowns. His numbers were nowhere near as good as his hall of fame NFL career but he is one of the most popular members of the Notre Dame alumni. 

Last week Montana held a speech in New York and was asked if he would ever consider a position as an athletic director or coach for his former school.

He responded with, “You’re asking me at absolutely the wrong time.”

Maybe it is the wrong time. Notre Dame has once again underachieved this season after having high expectations. They’ve lost three games this season in games they easily could have won and turned the ball over 13 times in those three losses. The coaches and players are often criticized for lack of effort and many believe that head coach Brian Kelly, who is in his second year, is not the right man for the job.

Despite all of that Montana didn’t stop there. He continued with, “What happened with my son and the reasons for leaving Notre Dame shouldn’t happen to any kid,” he said. “At this point in time, it’s hard to be in their corner.” Montana stressed “preparation, work and trust” as the keys to success. “I really believe that the way you come to work every day has more to do with your success than anything you do,” he said.

His son Nate Montana recently transferred from Notre Dame to the Montana Grizzles. But during his stay in South Bend he was arrested twice for underage drinking and suspension of driving under the influence of alcohol.

Maybe it’s just sour grapes coming from Montana with these comments or maybe he does have a point.

The rest here.

What next? Will Brian Kelly piss off ‘Rudy’ Ruettiger?

The good news:  Patrick Witt, Yale’s starting quarterback, is a finalist for a Rhodes Scholarship.

The bad news:  His interview is scheduled to take place on Saturday, November 19 — the day of the Harvard game.

In Atlanta.

Is it really a shock to anyone that Brian Kelly would eventually blame the players from the previous coaching staff for his team’s woes this season? After a twitter-eruption of sorts by the players, Kelly was forced to apologize for his comments.

It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, what coach is stupid enough to say it publicly? Maybe this is just another motivational technique I’m missing. Colin Cowherd, what say you?

As I’ve written before, Kelly should have been fired last year when videographer Declan Sullivan was killed. And his behavior this year that started with his purple-faced temper tantrum to this latest insult of his players show he’s just not the right coach for Notre Dame.

And tougher academic requirements for postseason play:

The Division I Board of Directors continued the quick-action precedent set earlier this summer, adopting a package of proposals Thursday that toughen academic standards and provide increased academic and economic support to student-athletes.

“These changes demonstrate a remarkable resolve by presidents,” said NCAA President Mark Emmert. “They represent a return to and a focus on values that are at the core of what intercollegiate athletics are all about. They also represent a clear signal to the world about what we care about and what we stand for.”

The Board approved an implementation plan – which includes all football bowl games – that mandates a certain level of academic performance in order to participate in postseason competition. The eligibility requirement will begin phasing in with the 2012-2013 academic year.

The Board also adopted legislation giving student-athletes who receive full athletics scholarships the opportunity to receive additional athletics aid up to the full cost of attendance or $2,000, whichever is less.

The working group that made the recommendation told the board the $2,000 figure is meaningful in addressing the miscellaneous expenses student-athletes now have. Institutions will not be required to offer the benefit, but conferences are encouraged to consider common application within their membership.

Academic changes

Earlier this year, the Board had voted to set the minimum academic standard for post-season participation as a 930 Academic Progress Rate (APR). The 930 APR predicts roughly a 50 percent Graduation Success Rate (GSR).

The new post-season eligibility structure will take effect in the 2012-13 academic year, with a two-year implementation window before the benchmark moves from 900 to 930. For access to post-season competition in 2012-13 and 2013-14, teams must achieve a 900 multi-year APR or a 930 average over the most recent two years to be eligible.

The rest here.

NCAA players have started to circulate a petition asking for more than just a scholarship in exchange for their participation in college athletics. They’re not too clear yet on what exactly they want, but things like extra years of tuition money seem reasonable to me. Especially at any of the large schools where the marginal cost of adding another student to a class is basically zero.

I’m against any plan that would pay players, however. If anything, I’d like to see college sports make less money and get back to true amateur status. If a university wants to field dozens of non-revenue sports, it’s time they learn to do so not on the backs of the football and basketball players.

Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports goes as far as suggesting the players should boycott a major bowl. Players will never do that — going to a major bowl and playing well means too much to their potential future earnings, but a boycott is about the only way players can hope to effect change on the system. Now, getting the players to agree on what they want — like the Occupy Wall Street hippies — is another story entirely and not likely to happen anytime soon.

What an ass:

Brian Kelly said after Notre Dame’s 31-17 loss to USC on Saturday night that he would fall on the sword “nine out of 10 times” but wouldn’t second-guess the way he prepares for bye weeks.

“Sometimes there’s some accountability from everybody, coaches and players alike, and sometimes it falls on, as a group, all of us,” Kelly said in the immediate aftermath of the defeat. “But they just, they didn’t play as well as they needed to play.”

Blame the players! And now, the walk-back:

Kelly clarified any misinterpretation of those remarks Sunday, saying what he tells the media afterward does not qualify as breaking news to his players.

“We always have the conversations first before I talk to you guys, you get it second,” Kelly said during his weekly teleconference. “So my conversation with our football team was what we talked about in the locker room and then it’s left for you guys to interpret any way you want. But my players know exactly how I feel.

“There’s one thing we don’t have a problem with is communication. It’s really clear with our guys as to what my feelings are after a game, what my expecations are of our football team, and we never put the loss squarely on one or the other. It’s a team loss. I lost. Our players lost. So the specifics of that stay within the locker room.”

Whatever.

There was no accountability at Notre Dame when that videographer died last year during a Kelly monitored practice, why should there be any on the coach now for not getting his team ready to play?

Kelly is below Notre Dame and it’s about time some adult supervision at the University realizes they’ve got the wrong guy as their coach.

Allow me to draw your attention to a little football game taking place this weekend in the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.

It’s Texas versus Oklahoma (or as I like to call it, Mobilhoma) in the Red River Shootout, and it’s arguably the best rivalry game in college football featuring two powerhouse programs. Now I’m a Texas alumnus, so what follows will be from a homer’s perspective. But this is a game that touches a nerve, brings out passion and hatred from the fans of the two schools like no other game in college football.

The Longhorns and Sooners have been playing their annual grudge match since ’00 —  that’s 1900. They’ve played in Dallas since 1912 (except for 1913, 1922, and 1923), and in the Cotton Bowl since 1932. The game takes place at Fair Park in Dallas during the height of the Texas State Fair. The series is close, with 59 Texas wins, 41 Oklahoma wins, and five ties.

Ah, the Cotton Bowl — the House that Doak Built. At kickoff on game day this Saturday, you’ll see 92,100-plus fans screaming, yelling, and stomping like maniacs. (ABC had better not let its microphones get too close to the stands, or their broadcast could violate some FCC regulations.)  It’s an electric atmosphere. From the air, you can easily see that the seating is split down the middle at the 50 yard line between Texas and OU, with the north end of the stadium a solid Texas burnt orange, and the south end Oklahoma crimson. The south endzone is where you’ll see The Tunnel, the only way into and out of the stadium for the two teams. Freshman players on both squads routinely loose the contents of their stomachs walking down the tunnel at the start of the game, and Texas players and coaches get a little extra “motivation” from the OU fans, who have nice things to say about the players’ masculinity and family pedigree as they dump beer and nachos onto their helmets and shoulderpads. Keith Moreland — who played baseball and football for UT, and who went on to a career in the major leagues — has said he’s stood at home plate during the World Series, and that it was nothing like walking down The Tunnel onto the field at the Cotton Bowl on the second Saturday of October.

This game has featured giants of college football coaching, such as Dana X. Bible, Bud Wilkinson, Darrell Royal, Barry Switzer, and Fred Akers. Past players from both teams include such NFL notables as Cedric Benson, Sam Bradford, Earl Campbell, Tony Casillas, Jamaal Charles, Happy Feller (how’s that for a great football name?), Keith Jackson, Bobby Layne, Colt McCoy, Tommy Nobis, Adrian Peterson, Greg Pruitt, Lee Roy Selmon, Billy Sims, Ricky Williams, Roy Williams, and Vince Young. The path to the Big 12 championship has often passed through Dallas and this game — not to mention the national championship. This game usually defines the season for both teams. Emotions and tensions run high on both sidelines. The hits come harder and the snot flies farther on every down.

This year, OU comes into the game ranked third in the country, and Texas twelfth. OU has been an early-season favorite to reach the BCS title game, and has manhandled its opponents thus far this season. They’ve faced only one real challenge — against Florida State in Tallahassee — but won that game going away in the second half. They are the odds-on favorite to beat Texas this year for the second year in a row. 

Texas was a big question mark coming into this season. Head coach Mack Brown had to replace most of his coaching staff after last year’s disappointing 5-7 season. New hires include defensive coordinator Manny Diaz (son of former Miami mayor Manny Diaz) and co-offensive coordinator Brian Harsin, who as Boise State’s offensive coordinator engineered the Broncos’ 2007 Fiesta Bowl win over OU in overtime on a Statue of Liberty play. Texas through its first four games has shown defensive aggressiveness that it lacked last season, and innovation and execution on the offensive side of the ball that’s probably causing Oklahoma defensive coordinator Brent Venables a lot of heartburn this week. 

In its win over Florida State earlier this season, Oklahoma looked physically dominant, fast, and strong, so it’s hard to argue with their being the favorite. They have an elite group of wide receivers and a quality quarterback in Landry Jones. Jones isn’t much of a run threat, however, so if Texas is creative enough with its blitz packages, the defense might create some turnovers to keep the game close. On offense, Texas features a dual-quarterback system with sophomore Case McCoy (Colt’s little brother) and true freshman David Ash; true freshman wide receiver Jaxon Shipley (little brother of Jordan); true freshman running backs Malcolm Brown and Joe Bergeron; and true freshman center Dominique Espinoza. That’s a lot of freshmen. They’ve all been nails this season, but Texas/OU is an entirely different animal from Rice and BYU at home, and UCLA and Iowa State on the road. 

Logic and Vegas make Oklahoma a 10.5-point favorite, and a 42-35 outcome seems realistic to me.  However, I’m picking Texas in a blowout, because I hate OU.

So for those of you unfamiliar with the thrill and pageantry of the Red River Rivalry Shootout, I strongly recommend that you join me and my pitcher of Bloody Marys at 11:00 a.m. central time to watch a college football game like no other.

Hook ‘Em!

Or is it his inner John Candy?

Watching this replay from the Wagner-Cornell game brings to mind memories both of Hall of Famer Jim Marshall and that great line from Planes, Trains and Automobiles:

“You wanna hurt me? You’re going the wrong way!“