Maryland is really killing us on the recruting trail. I cannot remember the last time the Nittany Lions landed a recruit from that state.

I was being sarcastic

The most absurd statement is that Tom Coughlin is an actual candidate. I read this last night and thought right there; that is where Matt Hayes loses 100% credibility. Why on earth would we go after a 61 year old guy who got lucky once? Nonsense.

different than those on everyone else’s lists and gave some viable reason they made his list. Grobe and Murhpy – interesting.

I’m guessing he wrote this article as a point of discussion rather than presenting facts.

Bielema would be an interesting hire that would add tons of hate between the schools.

Tom Coughlin has done well everywhere he has been. He is also a disciplinarian so that would at least get the bad news out of the paper. I think realistically though he wouldn’t want the job nor would Penn State want him.

Murphy has had two undefeated seasons at Harvard, but I (and hopefully everyone else) would have to question his ability to recruit seeing as its vastly simpler at Harvard. So I doubt he will be a candidate.

I doubt Grobe will ever leave Wake.

It would be interesting to see if anyone from a FCS school would be on a list.

Doesn’t seem as out of whack to me as everybody else. There are long standing ties between Penn State and the New York Giants because of Paterno’s relationship with the owners, etc. While that doesn’t necessarily apply to Coughlin per se, the Giants would generally hire a similar guy to Penn State.

I don’t know if that makes any sense, but it’s why Tom Coughlin is on the list, regardless of his actual interest. I would consider his hiring to be quite the long shot, but I’d certainly welcome it.

However, whoever made this list certainly has high opinion as to the attractiveness of the job. I guess that is something.

Nice picks, asshat. He might as well just come up with this for a list:
1. Goldie Hawn – she did a great job in getting the team to come together in Wildcats. If she can get the Bird to hit Peanut on the deep ball, she can get Clark to hit Moye too! Plus, Phil Taylor looks just like Finch. Coincidence? Not. Special bonus if she can bring in Nipsey Russell as the AD
2. Vince Lombardi – sure he’s dead, but he looks like Paterno a bit with the glasses
3. Coach Ed Gennaro from Necessary Roughness – will allow PSU to recruit better in Texas. Plus, Kathy Ireland is one hot piece of ass. Sinbad will add instant size to the OL.
4. Gene Hackman – preferably, as Norman Dale from Hoosiers, but we’ll also take
Jimmy McGinty from The Replacements. Two coaches who got the most out of 2- and 3-star talent.

Hey, my candidates have about as much chance of being PSU’s coach next year as his do…. does that make me a college football “expert”

If I had known my FanPost would get bumped to the main page, I think I would have done a complete FJM write-up on this hack-tastic article, instead of just a few select sections.

That, of course, was news to Penn State president Graham Spanier, whose response told the story: “We haven’t made any decisions, nor have we named anyone.”

Translation: It’s my team, I’ll make the coaching hire.

And he’ll make it in December.

This is where he lost me. Somehow Matt Hayes has gleaned from those 10 words that Graham Spanier is the guy holding all of the cards? On top of that he pulls out an exact month of when said hire will take place? Get this guy off the college football beat, let’s get him to Wall Street to start a super-lucrative hedge fund!

I don’t have a problem with throwing up a list of possibilities for discussion sake, but he doesn’t present it that way. He throws out five names that I estimate would collectively have a 20% shot of taking the head coaching position from Joe, with Schiano accounting for most of that.

The worst part is he doesn’t back up any of his five top candidates with why Penn State would go after said guy. It’s more an analysis of can Penn State get them.

I don’t know. Maybe he just got me angry with the recruiting comment and saying Wisconsin has better players than PSU, but Matt Hayes is no football “expert” in my eyes.

I was at Target looking through the college football mags and I think it was the sporting news version that had us ranked 7th in the big ten, That made me so angry I hid the magazine behind the ladies home journal. They probably turned to Matt Hayes and said you did such ground breaking work (no one else agrees with you) in placing PSU to finish 7th in the B10 what do you think about the next coach. I would have to throw in James Shatner, he commanded the enterprise with such expertise and decisiveness, blowing klingons out of the sky everywhere. Just think of the recruits we would get, give me more offensive plays that don’t suck Scotty…

I was wondering where he got Coughlin’s name the other day.

He was so close to getting run out of NYC and miraculously ended up winning a Super Bowl the next year. So it’s not like he should have any serious debt of gratitude to New York.