Primarily about Penn State football, this is a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Neil Rudel of the Altoona Mirror reports on Joe’s knee.
Joe hasn’t even been able to do his daily walks because of the leg pain.
Other sources say that Joe will be coaching from the booth against Temple on Saturday. This might be a portent of things to come.
To listen to Joe Paterno’s Tuesday press conference, you would think that Southern Cal or Oklahoma were coming to town this week. But, noooooooooooooooooooo. Joe used glowing words, as usual, to describe the Patsy of the Week, Temple University (1-2, 0-1 MAC). The gambling line favors home team Penn State by only 28 points.
Last year’s game was played at Lincoln Financial Field, still arguably Penn State home turf, but the punters gave Temple the home field advantage (usually a field goal) by establishing the line at 24. (Punter is a poor choice of a synonym for gambler, unacceptably ambiguous in this context, which is why I chose it.)
Would I please stop interrupting me with these side comments, already?!?
OK, I’m bored. I admit it.
This Turkey predicted a 44-13 score for that game. Following is the entirety of my game recap from last year.
Here’s a paragraph about the Temple game. Penn State won, 31-0, despite a completely lifeless, uninspired performance by the Nittany Lions. And now, the news.
The Turkey is seldom, if ever, so terse. Bombast is my equivalent of Tony Montana’s “leetle friend” in Scarface, but I couldn’t find words to describe the vacuousness of that damn boring game. Apparently, I wasn’t impressed.
Let us hope that we get a better show this year. PSU is playing at home, and the spread has widened. So much for Temple improving in the eyes of the betting populace. Admittedly, the gamblers might be surprised, inasmuch as Temple has shown improvements in a few areas, albeit not on the scoreboard or the won/loss column. Given their heartbreaking losses to UConn and Buffalo, they were a John McCain heartbeat away from being 3-0 Sarah Palin starbursts.
(The foregoing was a gratuitous allusion to current political issues hastily devised to boost The Nittany Turkey’s visibility in Google searches. I should add some other stuff, too, like: sex, MILFs, Lehman Brothers, Casey Anthony, Obama, Obama, Obama, almighty Obama, AIG, and hot naked Asian teen Viagra babes with debt consolidation issues. Let’s see how many hits this shameless ploy gets me!)
Where do Temple and Penn State best match up on the stat sheet? Kickoff returns. Penn State is currently #1 in the nation with a 35.11 average, while Temple is #4 with a 33 yard average. Very impressive, but meaningless in view of the quality of opposition thus far.
Temple still ranks #33 in scoring defense, thanks to holding Army to 7 points and UConn to 9. Alas, most recently they screwed up, allowing Buffalo to ring up 30, the final seven being on a game winning Hail Mary pass with no time left on the clock. That was after quarterback Adam DiMichele had lofted a touchdown spiral of his own to Bruce Francis with 38 seconds left on the scoreboard ticker. Temple was that close to actually having a winning record both overall and in the MAC. Nevertheless, the Owls are off to their best start since 1998.
DiMichele, a senior from McKee’s Rocks, just outside Pittsburgh, is a great player to build an offense around. Temple might have their best shot at a decent record this year with him at the helm. Last week, he went 24-33 for 285 yards and 3 TDs, with no INTs. ????? ????????? ?? ??? ????? He also ran for 58 yards, quite an all-around performance in a losing effort. (Yeah, I know. It was against Buffalo.) In fact, DiMichele leads the team in rushing.
In any case, Penn State (3-0, 0-0 Big Ten), ranked #15, should have no problems handling the Owls. Another week, another cupcake. View it as an opportunity for more reps for Pat Devlin and Don Pablo Cianciolo. We’ll also get to see how Mike Lucian fares in his new role providing D-line depth. Otherwise, the only thing interesting about this game will be if EggMan should happen to think Temple can beat the spread, in which case I’m going to win another bottle of Boone’s Farm.
Pay heem. Pay that myen his money.
—Teddy KGB, Rounders
Ho hum. Let’s get to Illinois already. I’m anxious to find out whether this team is either truly competitive or yet again a Big Ten middle-of-the-pack also-ran, the latter having been the case more often than not during the Nittany Lions’ Big Ten history. If they’re good, they might actually be able to beat a mediocre Michigan this year. In view of Michigan’s suckiness thus far under new head coach el Señor Ricardito Rodriguez, it might be anticlimactic, if not meaningless. Don’t let me count chickens before they hatch. The boys have to get past the next four opponents before tackling Big Blue the Unbeatable.
I’m too busy coming up with old metaphors and hokey nicknames, anyway.
I was looking for a good thematic dish to serve at my viewing party and I came up with Spotted Owl Stew. Unfortunately, on the way to procuring the main ingredient, I was accosted by naked PETA protesters and whacko environmentalists wearing tinfoil hats. I ran. My compadres will just have to be happy with salmon, the owl of the sea. (I just made that up.)
It will be interesting to see what the Ganja Three are up to this weekend, now that two of the three have been formally charged. Will Quarless actually get in the game? Will Evans and Koroma dress? I’m betting on “no” on all three propositions.
And now, the long awaited Official Turkey Poop Prediction. But first, here’s a bit of Temple trivia. Did you know that professional boxer turned actor Tex Cobb (pictured here) graduated magna cum laude from Temple? He did indeed, in January of this year. ?????? ????? Cobb, 57, earned a bachelor’s degree in Sport and Recreation Management. (Wow, that’s the same degree that Anthony Morelli got!) Cobb’s most famous fight was the 1982 fight against heavyweight champ Larry Holmes, won easily by Holmes, a fight so one-sided and bloody that TV commentator Howard Cosell complained bitterly about the travesty throughout the fight and vowed to never again cover professional boxing. He held true to his word. When asked if he would consider a rematch, Cobb exhibited quite a sense of humor, stating that he didn’t think Holmes would agree, because Holmes’ “hands couldn’t take it.” Cobb’s son Joshua played linebacker for the Owls, and was enrolled concurrently with his semi-famous dad. (I figured that every other PSU blog would be talking about Bill Cosby as Temple’s most famous alum, so I wanted to be different—because hell, I am different—but I digress.) Las Vegas has the current spread set at 28 and the over/under at 54. ???? ??????? ????? This suggests a final score of about 41-13. This Turkey wonders whether the PSU offense won’t be full of themselves after three cakewalks, and whether the defense won’t be on their heels looking forward to Illinois. Penn State 38, Temple 10.
We’ll be back with a report on Sunday. Or maybe Monday. Tuesday or Wednesday are possibilities, too. Whenever the hell I get around to it, in other words. Plus, we have to coordinate things with our very busy guest reporter, Dr. William H. Cosby.
Well, ol’ Maurice Evans and Abe Koroma were charged today with a semi-inconsequential misdemeanor, possession of a small quantity of marijuana. So, all that folderol by the cops and we have what amounts to what a whole shitload of college students do, only they’re not high-profile athletes in a program that is currently under a microscope. This Turkey still thinks that Evans and Koroma need some significant punishment from Paterno, not because of the gravity of the offense, but because they’re so irresponsible to the team and themselves, and besides, they’re dumbasses.
I read apologists’ reports around the ‘net saying that boys will be boys, etc., etc., ad nauseam. Screw that! Again, we’re not talking about Joe Student here; we’re talking about—dare I say?—hired hands. Yeah, that’s right. The payoff might be in futures, not present dollars, but it’s there and these guys need to be subjected to closer scrutiny and held to higher standards than real students for that precise reason. I don’t buy the “boys will be boys” crapola. It’s like saying that if players want to break training by disregarding rules and coming in overweight, that should be acceptable, too. ?????? ?????? ??? Look, these guys are playing for an NFL farm team, and it isn’t even a dirty little secret that they’re not real students. They’re privileged to be playing for a springboard program that will give them the visibility they need to make those big bucks at “the next level.” So, they better give us what we expect or they won’t get that eventual reward, which it seems many of them think is their automatic birthright.
Of course, the NFL will handle its disciplinary issues its own way. These morons better get used to being scrutinized for their behavior now, because if and when they reach the NFL, they’ll be 1,000 times more visible, especially because they’ll buy some 4-carat diamond earrings and 25 pounds of bling to hang around their oversized necks. (Why do they need to have big necks and fancy helmets? They have no brains to support and protect. Must be to keep the bling hanger in good working condition.) The thing is, as I’ve mentioned before, crap like this knocks their position down in the draft and costs them money almost immediately at “the next level.” Yet they’re stupid enough to do it anyway.
We all saw what happened to Ed Johnson. The NFL took a chance on him. He had the notorious “character flag” on his scouting report and he was passed over in the draft. Indianapolis decided to take a chance on him as an unsigned free agent. They essentially put him on probation. In his second year, he got himself arrested and now he’s out of the NFL. Yeah, another dumbass. Talk about cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face!
Yeah, I understand. I’m already hearing ex-hippie potheads my age telling me that, “Like, man, smoking pot shouldn’t be a crime. Make love, not war. Fuck the draft.” All that 60s bullshit. Yeah, right. You know what? This ain’t Woodstock. It’s a business—a huge money business at that. I employ your ass, I make the rules. You don’t like my rules, you get the fuck out. If you want to stay, you play by my rules. I don’t give half a shit whether you think marijuana should be legalized. Screw your philosophical debates. These guys broke team rules and that has nothing to do with what should be legal and what shouldn’t be. If I hire your ass and I want to make a rule that says you wear red on Friday, then you better damn well wear red on Friday.
I’m just anticipating all the damn apologists. So sue my ass for rampant cynicism. ???? ??? ??????
Now, what would I recommend? I think that if these clowns are first-time offenders, which I believe them to be, they should be suspended for half the season—not just the cupcake part of the season. Make the rest of the team pay for their transgressions and send a very strong no tolerance message to those who would scoff at team rules in the future. They also should be told that the next offense will result in their expulsion from the program. Yeah, it’s harsh, but it doesn’t seem that people on this team have respect for the law and fear of the Lord. It might take them a while to realize that the effects of their stupid, ill-conceived actions will plague them long into the future, but somehow they need to start growing up. ???? ??????? Boys will be boys. Bullshit!
I don’t see Paterno keeping these guys out for the Illinois game and beyond. It will be interesting to see just how it goes.
I’m sick and tired of all this crap. I want Penn State to return to being a paragon of a program, the grand experiment, all that stuff. Alas, the program is as guilty as the players for succumbing to the pressure to have a football team that can play at the highest level. Coaches have to recruit brainless idiots who have no sense of proper decorum for an athlete representing a premier institution (ok, for a Land Grant school, anyway). So, the program is culpable from the President of the university on down. The fish stinks from the head.
If you don’t like the program being under a microscope where every little character flaw is exposed, tough shit. That’s the way it’s going to be, henceforth and forever. And stop the whining about Penn State getting more than its share of adverse publicity. That’s bullshit. It just always seems that way because you don’t read 114 newspapers every day about Colorado University—you read them about Penn State. Jeez! Quit your bitching and press for the punishments to keep coming down, and coming down heavy—just like the “No Fun League.” Fuck ’em—let’s clean this thing up!
