The Nittany Turkey

Primarily about Penn State football, this is a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

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Why was Joe the first to go?

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The first Penn State official to perish in the Sandusky child molestation cover-up is the venerable Joe Paterno, who announced this morning that he would retire at the close of this football season. It remains to be seen whether his wishes will come to pass, as there is sufficient public pressure, ginned up by the national media, who have been magnetically attracted to this story, to end Joe’s career immediately, if not sooner. The Board of Trustees is meeting again tonight to discuss that, among a myriad other issues arising out of the Sandusky affair.

Why should Joe be the first to pay the price? He was exonerated by the Attorney General’s office, who have presumably placed him on their list of witnesses for the prosecution of Sandusky. He properly reported the information given to him by McQueary to his superior. Who knows for certain that he didn’t follow up and inquire about what was going on, as so many media wonks and bloggists (including this Turkey at times) have suggested or flat-out stated?

Given that introduction, Dan Vecellio wrote a compelling article for Onward State. You owe it to yourselves to step aside from the media frenzy and think about what Vecellio has to say.

When cooler heads prevail, I, too, hope that we can have definitive information about who did exactly what to whom and when, but knowing the secret nature of the ivory tower, that might never happen.

Paterno’s Tuesday Press Conference

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Penn State media relations people have requested that questions for Joe tomorrow be restricted to the Nebraska game and Senior Day. Seems like that leaves out something pretty big. Wait, I’m thinking…

Anyhow, you can read the request verbatim at Blog, Sweat & Tears. Read it and come back, because I don’t necessarily agree with all that the author says.

Will the reporters avoid mentioning the elephant in the room?

Will the reporters avoid mentioning the elephant in the room? Not hardly. It’s going to happen and it’s going to be very interesting to see how Paterno sidesteps the questions. Will he tell reporters that he can’t answer any questions about it because it is an active court case about which he’s not permitted to speak? That would probably be a lie, because the questions would not be about Curley, or Schmidt, or Sandusky, but about Joe, and he’s not a defendant. Besides, no one tells Joe what to talk about. He decides that. However, one source has stated that Paterno will be a witness for the prosecution, so he could probably get away with stonewalling it and blaming it on the lawyers. Or will Joe just say, “You all got a memo telling you what you could ask about, and if you don’t play by the rules, you’re outta here!” There’ll probably be University police there for handling intransigent reporters. Finally, will he just walk out, declaring the press conference over?

The University would love to sanitize and filter any information pertinent to the Sandusky case through its media relations office. Control of outbound information is of paramount importance to paranoid, power grabbing university administrators. The ivory tower doesn’t like stuff getting out that isn’t approved by the ivory tower. The stuff that does go out, that they want to go out, is generally watered down or released for a specific purpose. At the university with which I was associated, for example, it was typically very difficult for the local newspaper to get certain financial records, even though the “sunshine law” says they have to fulfill such requests. However, when a certain powerful administrator — who just happened to be the Vice President of Finance and Business Affairs — wanted to get the president fired, suddenly, the local newspaper was given free reign over the president’s expense account records and anything related to them. That was the president about whom you might have read my previous mention, the one who made the mistake of paying an out of town hooker with a University credit card. Once the newspaper got hold of that information it was a hasty exit for that ex-president. In Penn State’s case, they can try to suppress information about this sordid episode, but Showergate is just too big a story for media not to use every tool the law provides to scratch and claw for their information.

So, I believe that while Paterno might succeed in restricting tomorrow’s questions to football itself, the Nebraska game, and the players, he won’t get away with that forever. That’s the great thing about the country that we live in. We still have freedom of the press. Remember that it was the press that brought down the mighty Nixon. They’re salivating over this one.

Tide Competent; Lions Not

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Just a quick post to reiterate what Frank Gifford might say:

“Turnovers will kill ya.”

“Mistakes will kill ya.”

“Dropped passes will kill ya.”

“Penalties will kill ya.”

The worst mistake was communication failure. Using up all three first half time-outs during the first possession of the game was bad, very bad. ???? ????? Ridiculous, too. Ludicrous, even. It just might have cost the game, as the absence of timeouts later precluded a challenge to an Alabama first down on a crappy spot by the officials after a faked punt. As anyone who watched the game on TV will tell you (Alabama folks, too, if they’re honest), the Smelley runner was stopped short of the first down. Penn State would have had the ball with great field position.

Not getting plays in on time will kill ya. ??? ???? ?? ?????

By the way, were you surprised by the first play of the game (long pass play to Moye, incomplete)? I wasn’t . What is it with Paterno? In the 1980s, passing on first down was a novelty, an unusual departure from Penn State’s typical staid, run oriented game plan. Through the 1990s, employing the long pass early to stretch the defense was very effective. ????? ???? ???? ????? However, seeing this type of play implemented as the first play of the game is no longer a surprise. Even I, the perpetually neophytic pigskin pundit, said hey, how about a long one to Moye, when the Lions lined up for the first play from scrimmage. So, there are two problems with it now. First, no one is surprised; second, someone’s got to catch the pass.

I’ll be back later with further voluminously bombastic thoughts on this abomination of a game. Penn State just cannot win big games anymore.