That was the most straight forward post title I think I’ve ever seen, and I couldn’t agree more.

Is this something Bobby is dragging FSU in to? Does he actually have that kind of pull?

fwiw, I used to hate Bobby but I think I’ve mellowed with age, and he has too. When he said “it’s just us two and you hate to give up in a good battle like that,” I have to admit that was pretty cool. At least he admits to the competition and admits to wanting to win it. Good for him. He’s still a cheating cracker with makebelieve wins, but the man is a true competitor.

Let me get this straight. Florida State is considering giving up more scholarships in exchange for getting the wins back? Is the record so important to Bowden, Wetherell, and the Florida State community that they are willing to sacrifice future wins and deny potential athletes a free education for a chance at it?

Yes. Yes it is.

Bobby Bowden is FSU football more than anyone else is their program. It was absolutely nothing before him. Penn State had two 90+ game winning coaches before Paterno. FSU had 40 years as an all women’s college, three Dixie Conference Championships, and a smattering of bowl trips before Bowden.

Wetherell is a former FSU football player, so he is going to do whatever it takes to keep him in the race for the record. That even includes silencing dissent. They fired former color analyst Peter Tom Willis, a former QB and a member of the FSU hall of fame, after 10 years because he fairly criticized the offense during a game in 2005. Plus, taking orders from the university, the FSU Rivals.com site will insta-ban anyone who criticizes the man.

The thing that gets me about the whole deal is that Paterno still coaches when his body doesn’t fail him. Bowden has done little actual coaching in the last 15 years. He sits in the bleachers by himself during practice. He’s a figurehead, fundraiser, and recruiter, but he’s definitely not a coach anymore.

So yes, they will sacrifice just about anything for him. They tried to get off by throwing the tutors under the bus (didn’t work) and forcing out the old athletics director (didn’t work). They now argue that they would have suspended the ineligible players if only they had known they were ineligible, despite the fact that the whole entire problem was that they knew nothing.

It’s twisted logic sure, but there is no such thing as normal logic anymore when it comes to Bowden at FSU.

Regardless of the wins record there should really be no debate about who is the greater coach of the two. I’m glad I’m on this side of the fence. The selfishness of Bowden and the total disregard for the academics of his institution by TK is pathetic.

I didn’t think so. Not saying he is the greatest collegiate president out there, but I’m fairly sure he would not allow these shenanigans.

If Paterno keeps the lead by the end of the season. But I’ve said before if we slip up and FSU steals the lead I expect Bowden to retire and insist on all the fanfare and celebrations. ESPN will get Lee Corso to hose a special one hour tribute, full of infuriating bullshit about how Bowden did it all for the kids.

I will pull my hair out if this happens.

The legitimacy of Bobby Bowden’s record is punctured with so many holes that it’s incredible something like this hasn’t happened already.

for wins…but we are still going to count the wins when he was a coach at Samford? Come on now Bobby B…

If he had any care for the football program or university, for that matter, he would accept the punishment handed down by the NCAA and vacate the 14 wins for using ineligible players. Instead, he’s willing to forfeit more schollies and threaten future success of the program in order to keep those wins.

It seems he would rather leave the program in shambles and in a burning heap than lose out on a chance for that record. He’s going to hold the university hostage in his pursuit of the all time wins record in order to stroke his ego, and it’s a shame for any fan of that school.

this shouldn’t even be a discussion.

Enjoy

ScalpEm.com – Penn State Blogger Gets It All Wrong

On page 28 of today’s issue (http://today.sportingnews.com/sportingnewstoday/20090513/?u1=texterity&cache=1), they have a couple of columnists weigh-in about it in question and answer format:

Bobby Bowden blasted the NCAA for threatening to strip him of wins for the cheating scandal. Justified?

Dave Curtis: Of course not. …

Matt Hayes: …the players cheated to pass course exams. That helped them stay elgible, which helped keep them on the team, which helped the ’Noles win games. Why is that so difficult to understand?

They both make some good points. They won’t let you copy & paste. I didn’t feel like typing in everything they said. Go see it for yourself.

This may be your best work to date, dude. Super-provocative Title, bang-slammin Closing and nothing but content, content, content in between. Beautiful timing, too: way to let the ‘slow news cycle’ build and then drop this hellhammer smack in the middle of the week.

Just a beautiful, beautiful post.

Penn State fans have nothing better to do in State College, PA than think about ways to bitch about Bowden.

That’s right, it’s either obsess about Bobby Bowden or spit sunflower seeds onto the floor. And all Penn State fans live in tiny State College. None of us live in, you know, cities. Or work. We just think about Bobby Bowden. If only we were as intellectually enlightened (and busy!) as Florida State fans. That would be grand.

Penn State fans are from the Big 10, delusion is their thing

And really, who doesn’t love a good lecture on relevance and delusion from an ACC football fan?

Penn State players can give FSU players a run for their money when it comes to off the field indiscretions.

Drinking and punching? Guilty as charged. Widespread academic scandal? Call us when you break that story. All off-field incidents are not created equally.

They continue to whine about wins a Samford, because you know, it’s not fair.
 
That’s where it gets murky, and why I generally don’t like this all-time wins record nonsense. Eddie Robinson or John Gagliardi’s wins don’t count, but Bobby Bowden beating the University of Mexico does. It’s all so weird and dumb to me.

Penn State fans jump around to freaking Zombie Nation

Hmmm. Yeah. I also hate that stupid song.

of course psu fans are a little obsessed with the record.

outside of that, the bulleted items have about as much insight into the penn state community as stephen A. Smith did during that slanderous espn piece last year. there are many misconceptions and inaccuracies with that post.

"Most of the players aren’t going to be a student and play football (at FSU, Penn State or any other major D-I program) they’re going to play football and attend some classes."

is he actually implying that cheating isn’t a bad thing among student athletes? to do that would be an absolute insult to rolle, who earned his rhodes scholorship last year.

secondly psu does actually have students who play football. as do notre dame, navy, etc., all of which have incredible graduation rates. all of psu’s student-athletes continue to graduate well above their peers nationwide.

"Should FSU trades wins for scholarships? At this point I don’t care either way, that’s part of being disgusted with the whole thing."

he should care. the athletic future of fsu’s program is taking a hit, and sacraficing scholies now across all sports affects their futures as well as the potential students involved. not caring will not make this issue go away.

in fact, i believe not caring is what got fsu’s program into this mess in the first place.

while it is admirable that FSU reported the infraction, it is appalling the lengths they are going to spin this. since the article used the "they didn’t know" defense, should usc not be penalized because they allegedly did not know bush and others were also cheating?

Is it nice that JoePa has the record? Of Course. Do people have a right to bad mouth Bobby Bowden? No. Is it ok to dislike one, because of the race between he and our coach? Sure . However personality wise Bobby Bowden is a class act.

All he needs to do is ban jorts from Doak S. Campbell Stadium. It would be a relief to us all.

Geez, BB has been a great father figure for numerous players and helped out the community over and over. He is a man of great character who would give the shirt off his back to you if you asked, and his sweet Oakley shades too ;).

and neither is Joe Paterno. Penn State kids have (and probably will continue to) gotten themselves into trouble – mistakes have been made – punishments and consequences have been imposed.

Paterno weighs infractions differently – obviously. He doesn’t get too concerned about the drinking and punching and such (regardless of the alleged recipient) – his system is more ready to suspend players for academic and/or discipline infractions.

I’d be devastated in a (gf) similar situation as fsu; I can only imagine the white hot heat of ire that would radiate from Lasch.

If Bobby et al had argued about the suspension of championships in other sports, I could almost understand. But it’s been about the wins record in every interview I’ve seen. I don’t see why they’re shocked at this- it’s a rather large academic scandal, the punishment was severe. The NCAA has very little power, they’re trying to send as strong a message it can. If that means Bobby can’t get the record, so be it, hopefully they realize they can’t pull that crap anymore.

We’ve gone from arguing to bonding over bacon. Wow…I love this place.

is this:

The NCAA sticks to their guns and vacates the wins anyway (I believe this part to be fair and if Penn State were found guilty of this, I would expect Penn State to vacate the wins, not just the NCAA).

Then the FSU Seminoles pull a Texas / Stanford / every other school that does this, and counts those 14 wins anyway for their own school, putting “the race” back at 1 win difference.

Then, if for some reason Penn State falters, or something happens to Joe Paterno health wise so that he can’t coach anymore, FSU claims the record for Bowden and has the fanfare and all.
-———————————————————————————————
You see, NoleCC, this has less to do with us obsessing over Bowden getting the record and more to do with Bowden getting the record unfairly. Every point we make goes to the length of “Bowden has 31 wins against other division schools” “Bowden took a win against Tulane but JoePa didn’t do the same against Georgia” “Bowden’s kids cheated and played in 14 games which the NCAA decided should be taken away.”

In the eyes of Penn State fans, this is one piece of recognition we do not want taken away. 1973, undefeated and #5 in the nation… 1968-69 undefeated and nothing to show for it. If you ask any Penn State fan, who is the better coach… you will undoubtedly hear Paterno. If you ask any FSU fan, you’ll hear Bowden. But if you ask the nation, we want people to give Paterno the recognition. He deserves it.

"And let’s be honest about the free education bs, this is college football (they should just pay the kids and all it the minor league NFL at this point, at least it would be fair to the players) and it’s all about the Benjamins. Most of the players aren’t going to be a student and play football (at FSU, Penn State or any other major D-I program) they’re going to play football and attend some classes."

This is actually two separate issues.

Paying the student athletes instead of exploiting them is one thing. If someone out there thinks that players shouldn’t be getting some kind of cut from the massive contracts paid to the NCAA and Collegiate Licensing by ESPN, CBS, FOX, NBC, Big Ten Network, EA Sports, Nike, adidas, Under Armour, and other companies, they’re woefully wrong. I’d be happy with every single player on every program getting a percentage of the combined revenues from the televising, marketing and other sources, paid directly from the company to the athletes. For example, if ESPN pays $1 billion for a TV contract, then 20% of that should be paid directly to the athletes in that sport. In another example, the percentage of the NBC contract going to athletes would be spread over every athlete in NCAA football, not just Notre Dame’s players.

Enforcing that people in college attend class and do not cheat is an entirely different issue. At Penn State, if your academics aren’t in order, you don’t play. Period. End of story. And that goes for the playmakers too, like Joe Jurevicius. If you’re just going to play football and attend some classes, do that somewhere else, because you won’t succeed at Penn State.

By the way, they make Bacon Salt now, for those of you who want a little bacon flavoring with whatever meal you’re having. I highly recommend it. Because "everything should taste like bacon."

http://cfn.scout.com/2/845874.html

Why did Tulane have to forfeit the win in 1983? I know it was b/c they used ineligible players but I cannot find on the interwebz why the players were ineligible. Does anyone know?

And you all dream of being the man that Joe Paterno is.

Did you all hear something?

The U of Minn had a massive cheating scandal, had to vacate wins INCLUDING OUR FINAL FOUR in 1996-97. I wish we had the pull of a FSU so we could get those games back. What a joke.

IMO……Bobby Bowden pays amongst the PSU fans for allowing people who show boat (Deion Sanders) to do so and tolerate it. The rest of the country isn’t as puritanical as people in Pa are, so they don’t view the high stepping down the sideline the same way.

FSU fans I have run into down here have a LOT of respect for Paterno.

The only beef I have with Bowden is that they have severely underachieved over the last 5 years or so. They are stocked with supposed 4 and 5 start guys year in and year out and haven’t done much.

I think its easy to characterize Bowden as only about the wins, but I don’t look at it like that anymore. Frankly, I respect him for attempting to be truthful about his feelings on it. I can’t stand the spin all the time. Its tiring. BUT……I will say that we are probably taking his comments about leaving behind something for his grandkids out of context in that people are most likely, in my opinion, projecting their hatred for Bowden and FSU onto the remark.

Lastly, I think you have to give the guy a shit load of credit for putting together 15 consecutive top 5 finishes. That is simply amazing and something Joe Paterno and Penn State have never come close to accomplishing.

….this….thread….is….awesome

(and the NCA$A$ is kind of a joke)

we may or may not live on a street named for a particular FSU “symbol”. I know, right?! But we couldn’t let it stand in the way of the…uh…amenaties that came with the house :)

Bobby seems like a good guy. He’s absolutely a good football coach. Best compliment ever recieved from a beaten opponent; “I don’t think we could have played any better”, that was Bobby after the Orange Bowl game.

We were so much better than Florida State in 2005, that game should have been a route. Their kids played with a ton of heart, and they did it for their coach. One of my favorite Paterno quotes of all time applies, “There was glory left all over that field”. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game where two teams played harder, and the the only reason was who was going to get the last word on that record (no matter who winds up with it). You can take that for what it’s worth, but it says something about Florida State. And I think what it says is positive.

So with all that on the line, after gut wrenching loss, Bobby was great. Joe Paterno likes him. All in, that’s good enough for me.

But…. there is a difference between your football team and your university. No university, nor any of it’s employees, should ever take any position other than cheating is wrong, and that if it were up to the University President, the penalty would be crucifixtion. Any other position, for any other reason, cheapens and devalues the academic mission of the University.

I could care less about that stupid record. I’ll take Paterno and my degree that wasn’t defaced in his name, and you can have Coach Bowden, and his willingness to stand by and watch it happen. At least that’s what I think. At the end of the day, I never played football, the teams accomplishments are not mine. My Penn State degree is my accomplishment, to have somebody think less of it because a scholarship athlete could even bothered to study for an easy exam, would piss me off.

Jesse good points… in my opinion FSU isn’t taking an opinion of “cheating is not wrong.” If they were I’d be doubly pissed (since I’m already pissed that my booster money is going to the effing defense fund for this appeal and to Bobby’s son, inept fired offensive coordinator Jeff Bowden. I still believe it’s a case of FSU saying to the NCAA that they followed the NCAA’s rules about self-reporting, and the NCAA is changing it up on them.

To be honest though, short of the death penalty, I can’t really disagree with any of the final punishment that is handed down