And I've been posting from emotion the past couple of days. I also jumped out of my seat as soon as Morelli threw that pick.

I guess why I've reacted the way I have is that I got my hopes up so high for this year. Morelli had a year under his belt, and the schedule was favorable for a special year. But, it's another year of losing all of our big games. Yes, we're good, not great. But the one thing that keeps going through my head is that there were 110,000 screaming fans in that stadium who witnessed that. I think about the fan support, donations, etc. that Penn State gets and can't help but think we should be on the level of places like Ohio State. And maybe we will, but it won't be while Joe is still the coach. That is fine. There are much worse things in the world. My guess is that 2008 will be it for JoePa, and I don't want to spend it being bitter. Let's enjoy what we can for now.

I agree with everything you said, Mike. We have the rest of our lives to see what happens when our legenday coach hangs up his spikes. We have precious little time to enjoy having him around. Do you see how much support the students give Joe? For those of us who graduated from Penn State, it will always be our university. But right now it is their university. This is college we're talking about, and college football, not the NFL. I want to win as badly as the next fan, and no matter what the critics say, it's ridiculous to think that our coaching staff doesn't want to win even more. We have a pretty good thing going in State College. And yeah, I really hope the obnoxious knuckleheads who throw beer and F-bombs around would just get the hell out of town.

On a brighter note, a friend of my son (both graduated from PSU last year) headed downtown to one of the bars after the game Saturday and found a couple Ohio State fans there. The OSU fans came up and congratulated our guys on a good game. Our guys weren't sure they were being serious, but then their guys joked that they were trying to make as many friends as possible before everyone got drunk (re-drunk). Anyway, a conversation was struck up, and it turned out that this visit to Happy Valley was their first, but also completed their grand tour of Big 10 stadiums. And, they told my son's friends, they were treated better by far by our fans than they were at other Big 10 venues. This doesn't excuse what some of our knucklehead fans did, but it does help to balance things out a little bit. I like to believe that if I went to another school's stadium, or more importantly if my daughter went to another school's stadium, she would be treated with respect.

I attended the game with my friend from Ohio State.  I've seen numerous games in Columbus and I wore my Penn State jersey to the game in 2000 and really didn't get much guff.  Course it didn't hurt that Penn State really lost big that day.  

Anyway, we used the restroom around the 2nd quarter, and two older, big guys (I'm 6'3" 218 but these guys were taller and outweighed me by 50 pounds) starting giving my friend guff for being from Ohio State.  Not good natured guff either.  Rude, actually.    

So we put up with it and went back to our seats.  Turned out they were three rows behind us and started in on him again.  

I'd had it and I'd had a bit to drink, but I stood up and just lit into them.  Not really sure exactly what I said, but I didn't hear a peep out of them for the rest of the game.  They slunk out long before we did.  We stayed to see the end of the game.  

I'm sure when the guy who sold the tickets to me shows up for the Purdue game, he's going to hear all about it.  Glad I'm not him.  

It's football, for pete's sake.  Me and my buddy were in the Gulf War together.  Football is supposed to be fun.  If it merges into hate for fans of the other team, you've lost all perspective.  It was just two guys, no one else started in with us, but that's all that it takes.  

We still had a great day, overall.  Beautiful weather, campus looked great and did some good tailgating.  

Not sure I want to attend any more games live.  People are such a pain these days.  I'd rather watch at home.  

"Delusional is saying Mark May is a good analyst and Lou Holtz speaks English."

Funniest thing I have heard in a long time, Mike!  

You were right about AJ Wallace though, he is unreal at kick returns.  Too bad I missed it live as we left before you did.  I was at the gate when they picked Morelli.

To follow up on our discussion, I couldn't find a good breakdown of Corso's career coaching record, but basically he did good at Louisville, bad at Indiana and 4-4-1 at Northern Illinois.  Not good in the USFL either.

Just a few more facts about him I found:  He was Burt Reynolds college roommate and he was the FSU all-time INT leader till Deion Sanders broke the record in his last game.

I too was disgusted with the behavior of the Penn State fans/students on Game Day.  I hope whoever did it got the crap beat out of him/her.  Mike, I agree with you 100% - MAY NO ACT OF OURS BRING SHAME.  I've made some posts on some of the PSU facebook pages too and I encourage all of you classy people to do the same.  
I have friend from OSU who went to the game and the entire week leading up to it, he was seriously worried that he was going to get a urine filled bottle thrown on him or that some a-hole PSU fan was going to pick a fight.

This is the reputation we're getting and it is embarrassing.  Is this what goes hand in hand with being one of the toughest venues to play in?  If so then I'd rather go back to the old ways.

and have lowered your expectations. Yeah, we had a number of 8 and 9 win season in the 70s and 80s when we were playing much tougher schedules. How many of our games in the 80s were against I-AA teams? How many were with the FIUs and Arkansas States of the world? Sure, we had our Temples and Rutgers, but used those games as breaks between the USCs, Nebraskas, Alabamas and Miamis. Now we use our pathetic non-conference schedule just to pad our early season ranking before we take our place in the middle of the pack of the Big Ten and the lower end of the Top 25, if we even make the Top 25.

This program has hit the skids. You'll see that next year when we have our tough games on the road and start another undeveloped, new starting QB. Those customary 8 or 9 win seasons that you find so satisfying will be a 7-win season in 2008.

I have a few opinions, it is true that at least 40-50 programs start out the year wanting to win the national championship, it just isn't going to happen. Excellence comes in spurts for teams as Mike explained so well.  A real fan sticks with their team thick and thin, when you win it all it is just icing on the cake. I remember the 86, 94, and 2005 seasons like they were each last year.  We will have our run again.  In the meantime we need to have class, as fans we can intervene if we see the 60 year old ohio state fans being harrased by drunken students.  With the swearing and beer throwing I think we as fans deserved to lose the game, we can use a little humility.  How many fans that showed no class towards OSU will be rooting for them if they make the BCS championship game?

is a good analyst.  He did in fact say last week that Penn State had no chance of winning this game.

The only positive I can come up with is that maybe the younger players on the team saw firsthand how a #1 team gets ready to play and perform in a big game.

I'm new to the board and as you can see, from a rival school.  But I lurk here because of the quality of this site, and the sane posts provided by most folks here.  Your writeup about the game was dead-on.

I wish the rest of the internet provided such perspective and rationale, but then, who would read it.  Wish you guys the best the rest of the year

Mike - that was well written and obviously comes from your love for the school and the program. Saturday night was tough for you guys.

Regarding all the calls for changing the PSU coaching staff after this season - I'm surprised anyone even thinks Paterno has that much of an influence on whether the team wins or loses each week. He's had pretty much the same coordinators and personnel on the staff for eons and its's well known he gives them a free hand so I'm not sure Paterno is to blame for that loss.

What I do wonder is why Joe Paterno doesn't want to look back at his sterling career and impact he's had on the University and opt out gracefully. I understand all the sentimental reasons that PSU fans have for his staying on -and that's fine. But Paterno himself, at age 80, could say "It's time to turn things over now - I've done all I can for the school".  Honestly - there are no more mountains for him to climb - he built the program pretty much singlyhandedly, made positives impacts on players, students the community and the University as a whole, and has fulfilled a life's work.

Sorry, but in the back of my mind I can't help but think there is a measure of ego and selfishness in his continuing on in that position after 40+ years. Granted he obviously CAN stay on as long as he wants, but just because he can doesn't necessairly mean he SHOULD.

I started going back to PSU for games five years ago, when my son was 11. I had been indoctrinating him into the Penn State philosophy ever since he was old enough to understand, and our trips out there validated everything I told him about the school: honor, integrity, the academic priority. A long drive, but always a great day. Now, this. We didn't go to this game (not that I had a chance to), and I'm glad we didn't. The loss was tough, but the fan behavior was horrible. I could keep my head in the sand about the Penn State fans and students who throw beer, f-bomb at will, and curse the other team. But I won't. I'll write to Spanier and implore him to try find the offending students and bar them from all games. He may not be able to do that, but he'll at least know how I feel.

If anyone else feels the same:

GRAHAM B SPANIER
E-mail:    presidnt@psu.edu

That was back when the season was 10 or 11 games, not twelve. There is a big difference between an 8-2 season and an 8-4 season, especially when the longer season just means more cupcakes.

Even at that, we've only hit the 8 win mark 3 times this decade.

       I think they deserved to win, but I am not rooting for Ohio State to win the National Championship. I still don't like them. I hope Oregon or Arizona State somehow do it.

Alright, I admit it, I was giving a couple of OSU fans a hard time in the tailgate but I also spent some good times with them laughing and kicking back. I have a HUGE problem with you guys singling out Eagles fans and comparing them to drunkards however. As with most problems these bad PSU fans were the vocal minority as are the idiots that used to sit up in the 700 level at the Vet. This is a direct effect from the 8pm start time and the fact that OSU is our biggest rival in reality, you get everyone up at 9am and give them 11 hours to drink before a game and this is what will happen. And the reason no one ever gives PSU fans crap when we go to their stadiums is because they dont consider us a rival, just another team on their schedule. I was talking to a firend of mine who spent a lot of time at some OSU tailgates this weekend(and actually used that Lauranitis's dad wears a leotard and the Animal was at the tailgate!) and he said that all of the Buckeye fans see Penn State no differently than any one else, aside from Michigan.

This Penn State team was suppose to be pretty good, OSU was suppose to be "rebulding" turns out they were just "reloading". If PSU had played them in the begining of the season they would have won, but the Buckeyes had 8 weeks to get their team into shape and every part of their team that was suppose to struggle had enough time to get into game shape.  I had high hopes for this season and now I am offcially bummin, we will win our final 3 games and will win the bowl game as well, the team IS good, but like you said Mike "not Ohio State good".

I have to say, Mike, that you make it hard to comment when you sum up everything I was thinking on the trek home on Sunday.  Even when I try to think of something to comment on, it seems like someone else beats me to the punch, and that just keeps me coming back for more.

The fan behavior is reprehensible as of late and that can only be attributed to the formidable "dark years."  As a student, I came to Penn State with the notion that our team would be a powerhouse, especially coming off the year LJ had in 2002.  I was very naïve at that time, especially about Penn State (my parents did not go here, nor did they watch the games with the passion that I do now) and even more so, about college football.  I really didn't become a serious fan of both these things until I went there and became engrossed with the culture.  Booing and "Joe Must Go" chants were the norm, and I feel the swelling sense of bitterness that had already formed during the losing years in 2000 and 2001 was only compounded.  I, of course, didn't know of those seasons and couldn't believe that Penn State could falter so much on the grid iron considering the history of the school.  It was an insult!

As you mentioned in your post, though, seasons composed of 8, 9, or even 10 wins have been consistently the standard for the Lions.  Nowadays it is unfortunate that they usually come against cupcakes such as FIU, Temple, UCF, and Akron because it does inflate the perception of how good we really are.  More importantly, though, I don't think the newer generation of students realizes this.  Looking back on my freshman and sophomore years, I expected glory those first two seasons and I got two teams that didn't seem to represent Penn State at all.  I wanted national titles, but all I got was losing records.  I wanted to win, and I wanted it now.

Reflecting on these feelings, I realize how inane and idiotic I sounded.  There is so much more to this game than we in the student section realized.  These players are playing on a national level with heavy expectations of students and alumni, and they are only between the ages of 18 and 23.  The talent and development and coaching of the players play crucial roles in all of the games, especially the big ones, and it seems like the team still does not have all these necessary ingredients to make a run at a title (and I have to say this will not happen until Joe decides to step aside).  I want to win another national title as much as the next fan, but in sports, so much has to go right for such a thing to happen.

I feel fortunate for being a student during the 2005 run.  Something like that does not happen often and I really cherish the moments I got to stand with my friends in the student section when we once again were thrust into the national spotlight.  And that made me want to learn more about our team, both in the present and the past, and to measure our chances of doing well objectively.  I came to realize what this program is about with the plain helmets, no names on the back of any jersey, and the integrity of one of the most successful programs in college football history.  Unfortunately, it can be a double-edged sword as it has made the freshmen class and those future classes expect that sort of season to happen all the time now, thus heaping more pressure on the team.

You say that Penn State is built to make runs every three or four years to have an extremely successful season, which I believe to be true as well.  Those sorts of successful seasons only feed the unrealistic expectations of each successive student class, who feel that they deserve a national title while they are there.  And if they don't get what they want, it turns to boos and "F--- OHIO!" chants.  Trust me, I was in the same seats they were once in.  Hopefully, they'll come around just like I did.