my theory has been he’s lazy. how much research or time do you think he spent writing the “Joe’s the good guy, Bobby’s the bad guy” article? How many times has this article been written by writers across the country over the last 20 years?

Ron isn’t picking on Penn State, he’s just a lazy hack who goes for the low-hanging fruit in his business — something of an unwritten rule in sports journalism… If it doesn’t require any research, thought, or time, you can bet there’s going to be about a million words worth of articles published about it.

If you have to research something, come to a conclusion, then report some evidence of that research to substantiate your claims you’ve probably already lost your job to some hack who just wrote 500 words on Allen Iverson’s new haircut, or Tony Romo’s honeymoon in Mexico.

He’s an ass.

I think this guy is forced to occassionally write about PSU in an otherwise Pittsburgh-centric sports world, and he resents it or just flat out doesn’t care enough to put any effort into it. So he just writes really cliche opinion pieces that anyone could come up with, like the one about Bowden and Paterno.

He’s also wildly inconsistent with his opinions, another indication he doesn’t put any thought or effort into these articles:

why we should want to be 6-6 last summer, to get rid of Paterno of course! “Even one more year of Paterno would be one too many.”

and then you have this quote about 4 months later: “I repeat: Paterno is the greatest college football coach of all time.”

after that you’ll find a lot of obvious observations: “Clark needs to play better for the lions to beat MSU” or “Iowa was a let down b/c Joe may not get another shot at a NC”. Sprinkle in there a crap load of stuff about Pitt, the Steelers, and the Penguins and you have this guy’s repertoire.

is it April 1 already?

because he’s afraid that fugimaster24 will reprimand him again!

I’ve heard this phrase twice this past week, and agree with Millz, it’s quite apt to the traditional sports journalists. Blogistan contributors, on the other hand, are climbing all over that tree to get every last piece of fruit. Take BSD for example, and look at all the varieties they’ve put up for us this offseason! Good stuff, fellas.

And, the WTF is for Pete. Given my love of phraseology, and the often inherent intergenerational aspects of its vagaries, I’m just too curious what the heck you mean with The Blind Squirrel and Stopped Clock theories. Can’t wait to read your elaboration, please.