Give him plenty of playing time against IU, but do not under any circumstances start him against MSU. That’s going to be a tough game as it is.

I’m sorry I’m going to be focusing my anger on you for the next 4-5 sentences, but NO, NO, NO, NO, well maybe….NO. Clark is one of the best QBs PSU has had in the past 15 years. He’s not Morelli. We should have been easing in the new starter during 07 (and we did a little at the bowl). This, however, is not one of those years. Newsome will have another year to develop, plus the competition with his incoming freshman QB competitors, but the time for him to take a starting role is not now. The mere thought of doing that is beyond idiotic. He’ll get junk time, but you don’t, and Joe wont (and I honestly wholeheartedly agree) bench his senior QB who has only lost 4 games as a starter. I’m sick and tired of hearing people bitch an moan when Clark has a bad day. Sure, some of the blame can be placed on him, but we know that’s not entirely the case. And sorry to vent on you Adam, but this is an extremely stupid question and a pointless post.

That’s priority #1. Clark’s our best QB, and our best shot at winning. We do definitely need to get Newsome some experience but we don’t need to risk losing games for it. Hopefully he’ll get some good time against IU, and maybe if we’re lucky, against MSU too, but no way do we put him in before we have the game in hand, whether that means him being completely inexperienced next year or not.

How much do we sacrifice the future for current “mediocrity” (for lack of a better term – I don’t want to trivialize the accomplishments of this team)? And it’s a fair question, especially since college football is all about turnover.

For me, I continue to be a more “old-school” thinker. It’s not really a broken system we’ve got, just flawed. But most of the flawed parts will be out on the field, gaining the experience with either QB. However, I think it’s best practices to the seniors to make sure we have the best line-up (or in business terms, the best product) on the field for these last games. If I felt there was absolutely nothing left to salvage out of this season, then I could easily see the argument. But we’re still in the running for a decent bowl game, one that’s lower than expectations perhaps, but it’s still something for which to fight.

We should probably bench Lee, Odrick, Hull, and probably Bowman too cuz he’ll go pro. They aren’t doing anything for Penn State football’s future. Nevermind the fact they’ve busted their asses for four, and in Lee and Clark’s cases 5 years to put this program where it is. They’re not going to be around next year, and this season is obviously a failure because we aren’t going to a BCS bowl. If they wanted to go out on top, they had their chance, but they blew it, so f*** them.

But Joe is too old to realize it’s an all or nothing world. If you’re not 11-1 you might as well be 3-9. At least the young kids will have experience, so that next year we can go undefeated.

“better go pro before your senior year, because if we have more than 1 loss during the season you’re getting replaced early”

“yeah, you gave us 3.5 solid years of effort, but now we’re going to go a different direction and start the new flavor of the month”

While I definitely think that Newsome should get more playing time (and wish that he had gotten more playing time from the beginning), Paterno has consistently stated that he only wants to put Newsome in there where he’s in a position to succeed (though I do agree that they should use a little foresight and realize that having his second start ever against Alabama isn’t really putting him in a position to succeed, either). The best we can really hope for is that both Indiana and MSU (and the bowl game) are essentially over at halftime, and that we can put Newsome in for the second half in order to get significant game experience.

I’m not happy w/ yesterday’s performance, but I don’t think he deserves to be punished.

Personally, I’d like to see Newsome get some significant time against IU and then “introduce” him to the nation during the bowl game the same way we did with DC in the Alamo Bowl.

Yeah, we got spanked but doing that would be saying that PSU is a bunch of punks that are giving up. NO!!!

I do think they should design some “packages” for him and get him some hits in quality time. He has shown some good running skill.

That said, the coaches may not be happy with his progress thus far and don’t feel he is ready for anything. Who the heck knows?

However, Clark should be the man as the starter. He’s earned it. I hope that we get up enough on the Hoosiers that Newsome can get some quality PT, maybe with the first unit. However, the Hoosiers have played pretty well in several of their games recently.

Let’s concern ourselves with 2010 in 2010.

Newsome, Jones and Bolden will fight it out for the starting job next year. There is a lot of talent there and the team will get better as the season progresses.

2010: 8 maybe 9 wins
2011: 10 maybe 11 wins. possible Big 10 Title
2012: potential National Championship run.