Okay, Joe Paterno is going to be the head coach at Penn State for a few more years.  It's good news in many ways -- he's fun to have around, the team seems to be on stable ground and just won a conference title, etc. -- but with the stubbornness of an 82 year old coaching icon comes the occasional slap of reality.

"I don't know whether it's important for the team (for him to be back on the sideline in 2009), but it's important for me," he said. "I'm frustrated. That was a very frustrating (year).

"You're up there (in the press box Thursday at the Rose Bowl), and there's ol' Pete Carroll barking at the officials and grabbing them and the whole bit, trying to get a break here and there. And I'm sitting upstairs. I'm not down there telling some of those guys, 'Hey, why don't you wake up?' "

Although most of the leg work has been done for Penn State's recruiting class, Paterno hopes he can go on the road in the next several weeks. He was recovering from his sideline collision at Wisconsin during the winter of 2006-07 and from pneumonia last winter, which prevented him from visiting recruits.

"We'll have to see," he said. "Doc (team doctor Wayne Sebastianelli) is not sure he wants me up and down in the little airplane because of the blood-clotting (factor)."

So it's important for Joe to be on the sidelines (check that, it's important to Joe), but when it comes to visiting recruits in their homes...not so much. 

How did he get to Pasadena, stage coach? 

We have to ask, how substantial is this unwillingness or inability to travel?  There are plenty of highly regarded recruits left in our region, most notably Jelani Jenkins, a five-star linebacker in Maryland who could be swayed by a rare Paterno in-home visit.  I would be more than happy to chauffeur him around the mid-Atlantic, with hourly stops to get out and stretch.  Seriously.  I'm available for that job any day.