Hard to believe, but it was two years ago today this little tube of the internet sparked to life and BSD was born. Perhaps this is a good time to go back and revisit the BSD mission statement.

Before we go into what you can expect to see here, let's discuss what not to expect.  You will not see any exclusive interviews with players or coaches.  I don't have any access or affiliation with Penn State.  You will not get inside scoops.  In fact, you will not get any news here you cannot find yourself elsewhere on the internet.

So now you're asking yourself, "Why in the world should I bookmark this site?"  I will try to explain.  If you're like me, you might like to keep up with the football team and know what's going on with recruiting or who is moving up on the depth chart in spring practice.  You might be interested to know who tore their ACL and who is surprising the coaches in the weight room.  You are probably interested in knowing this kind of stuff, but you don't have time to hit fifty websites a day.  That's where I come in.

Black Shoe Diaries mission is to be your one source where you can keep up with Penn State 365 days a year.  I check all of these websites every day.  It's my hobby.  I would do it anyway even if this blog didn't exist.  I always have.  My service to my fellow Penn State fans is to combine the information I gather into one source so you too can keep up with Penn State all year round.  

If you're a die hard PSU fan like I am, you already know what's going on with the team so you don't need me for that.  This site will give you a forum to talk about Penn State with other Penn State fans.  Each post will offer my opinions and analysis which you can take or leave, but you are free to offer your own opinions and analysis as well.

What makes blogs interesting is the comments and interaction between the readers.  I promise you we will all have more fun here if you comment on my posts and each others comments.  I will try to steer the conversation by offering timely and entertaining topics.  I will also try to bring in some fans from other colleges to spice things up a bit.  If you don't like my topic du jour or you hear a juicy rumor from Anthony Morelli's roommate's girlfriend's sister's classmate, you can start your own conversations in the diary section.  But it's up to you the readers to make this fun.  So with that, let's start blogging.

All-in-all not too shabby. I think we've done a pretty good job living up to that vision.

I look back on that blogger two years ago with amazement in how far he's come. Back then I set a goal to reach 200 hits per day. At the time 200 hits a day would have made BSD the biggest Penn State blog on the internet when your only other options were The Nittany Line and Run Up The Score who were also in their infancy. Today we average around 2500 hits per day and I suspect once we get into the season that number could top 3000. In two years we've seen over 840,000 hits and sometime in October I suspect we will top the one million mark.

I've logged two seasons and 1071 posts. But BSD is more than just Mike, RUTS, and Kevin. It's 408 members who have logged 511 fanposts and 16,223 comments. Without all of you BSD wouldn't be the great venue it is today, and for that I thank you all.

It's funny how during the offseason every conference has their little pet projects they try to push on everyone. The SEC wants to start a playoff. Big Ten coaches want a vacation. The Big East wants us to think they're actually good. So what is the Big XII pushing for? They want to do away with redshirts and give kids five years of eligibility.

Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe has repeatedly heard football coaches complain about the attrition caused by dwindling scholarship limits and longer seasons. And he wants to do something about it.

Beebe has proposed a plan that would provide five years of eligibility for college football players. He hopes to gain support before eventually taking his idea to the NCAA Management Council for action.

The proposal would end redshirting in college football and cease the current practice of four seasons of eligibility during a five-year window.

Personally, I think this is a good idea. The 85 scholarship limit has made it difficult to fill out rosters. Now you're taking nearly one fifth of those kids every year and forcing them to work on the scout team and not see any playing time for their hard work and sacrifice. Why not give them a chance to play in the blowouts or run down the field on the kick team? How many kids are ready to play by week 10 in the season but end up sitting anyway because the staff doesn't want to waste a year of eligibility on them? How many kids lose an entire year of eligibility to throw a hopeless Hail Mary pass in the midst of a losing season? Just think, if we had this rule in place back in 2004 we could have Anthony Morelli back as our starter in 2008.

You know, on second thought, maybe this isn't such a great idea afterall.

Spanier vs. Paterno

I'm usually pretty leary when a publication starts trumpeting a series of articles before they are released. They rarely live up to the self generated hype, and such was the case with PennLive's much hyped three part interview with Graham Spanier. In part one, titled "At Last, Spanier Talks of Paterno and the Future", Spanier falls back on the predictable "We have discussions all the time" line and doesn't really offer anything earth breaking. Part Two discusses Spanier's upbringing if you care to read it. But it's part three that interests me most as it details how Spanier handled another high-profile coach in Tom Osborne while he was at Nebraska.

Osborne and his mentor and predecessor, athletic director Bob Devaney, had a succession plan already worked out when Spanier arrived from Oregon State in 1991.

That plan: Devaney would retire as AD in 1992. Their mutual friend and longtime Nebraska compliance guru, Al Papik, would take over and keep the seat warm for five years or so. Then Osborne would retire at around age 60 and slide into the AD's post.

Spanier heard of that plan. Then he implemented his own. He instead launched a nationwide search for what he fervently believed the post urgently required -- not just a store manager from the retired-coach football pipeline but a vital financial rainmaker who could raise the school's athletic brand and pump its budget.

He ended up plucking Bill Byrne from his old school's rival, Oregon.

Spanier is a man who is not afraid to follow his vision even if it means rocking the boat. Joe has plans to hand off the program to one of his assistants just as Rip Engle handed the program off to him 42 years ago. If Spanier feels the person Joe and Curley pick is right for the program he'll go along, but I suspect Spanier is more interested in dollar signs. He will want a vibrant young coach with a charismatic personality that can hypnotize wealthy donors into pulling out their check books and signing away their next investment plan for the good of Penn State. I'm not sure Tom Bradley is that man. Nor is anyone else on the staff for that matter. Spanier wants a national search, and he knows the pecking order. Tim Curley reports to him, and not the other way around.

Here We Go Again

It never ceases to amaze me how people can look at football recruiting in a bubble and make rash generalizations based on the decision of one or two 17 year-old kids. Such was the case when Rutgers recently recieved a verbal commitment from Andre Civil, a high school linebacker from New York City. If you listen to Tom Lucci of the Star Ledger, the sky is caving in on Penn State.

As a youngster growing up in New York City, Andre Civil said the only real college football presence that he was aware of was Penn State. Occasionally he heard about Syracuse, but never about Rutgers.

That began to change a few years ago, said the defensive end from Sheepshead Bay High School in Brooklyn.

"All of a sudden you started hearing a lot about Rutgers and not all that much about Penn State," Civil said.

Rutgers' growing recruiting influence in two former Penn State strongholds -- New York City and eastern Pennsylvania -- continued yesterday and could as well today. Civil, a 6-3, 240-pounder, gave Rutgers a verbal commitment yesterday, with the likelihood that tight end Paul Carrezola of Neshaminy (Pa.) High School will do the same today when he announces his college decision at a press conference.

Lisa Baratta falls for it hook, line, and sinker in her post titled Penn State Who?

The times they are a changin'.

Is Penn State getting leftovers from the likes of Pittsburgh and Rutgers? When there are energetic coaches out there scouting in-state recruits, PSU can't just sit back and assume the kids will still come to play for the legendary Joe Paterno.

Poor Lisa. Every blogger, including yours truly, has to learn the hard way at some point. You can't just throw erroneous facts out there and expect people to believe them.

Civil is a three star defensive end from New York City. He has offers from Rutgers, Connecticut, and Georgia Tech. That's it. Carrezola is a tight end from Neshaminy. He also lacked a Penn State offer, but did hold a slightly more impressive offer list that included Syracuse, Pitt, NC State, Connecticut, and Iowa. Penn State has taken a load of defensive ends and tight ends in recent years and doesn't really need to take any in this class. Anyone who even remotely follows Penn State recruiting will tell you our biggest needs this year are offensive tackle, wide receiver, and defensive backs. So far we have four great defensive backs with one kid who could possibly play wide receiver and two massive offensive tackles that had offers from some of the biggest programs in the country. The only kid anyone can point to in recent memory that has turned down Penn State for Rutgers is Tom Savage. But Savage was smart enough to realize that Penn State is going in the direction of the spread option attack which is not a good fit for him. So he chose to play for Schiano where he can hand off the ball to their next version of the Ray Rice battering ram 30 times a game. Have fun with that, kid.

But let's not fall into the trap of trying to draw a trend from one or two kids. Is there any statistical evidence to suggest Penn State is taking the leftovers from Pitt and Rutgers? Let's look at last years recruiting classes. Penn State had a small class of only 14 kids last year, so if there was ever a year for Pitt and Rutgers to raid Pennsylvania and New Jersey it was then.

Last year Rutgers took a class of 20 kids. Not one of them came from Pennsylvania and not one of them held an offer from Penn State. On the flip side, Penn State landed Jack Crawford (NJ), Pete Massaro (PA), Matt Stankiewitch (PA), and Mark Wedderburn (PA) who all held offers from the Scarlet Knights. This year Penn State has verbal commitments from Eric Shrive (PA), Mark Arcidiacono (PA), and Darrell Givens (MD) who all turned down offers from Schiano. The only verbal pledge for Rutgers that turned down Joe Paterno is Tom Savage. So tell me again who is getting the leftovers?

As for Pitt, last year they handed out 19 scholarships. Only Jarred Holley and Lucas Nix turned down offers from Penn State to play for the Wannstache, and Nix was a done deal to Pitt from the beginning because he older brother played there. On the other hand players that spurned Pitt in favor of Penn State included Jack Crawford, Pete Massaro, and Mike Yancich. Even though you may consider that a slight win for Penn State at best let's call it a draw for the sake of argument. So how are the two teams shaping up this year? Penn State has eight verbal commitments including Darrell Givens, Eric Shrive, and Derrick Thomas who all turned down Pitt offers. Pitt is still waiting for their first verbal commitment. So you tell me again, who is taking the leftovers?

Etcetera

I was contacted by the Homecoming Committee yesterday to plug their new blog called...wait for it...Penn State Homecoming '08. Normally when people ask me to plug things for them on BSD I tell them they should buy advertising space or get lost, but since they are fellow Penn Staters looking for a hand I made an exception. They would like you to visit their blog and provide some feedback. Please do so. My first suggestion is to come up with a new blog name.

If you're not already, make sure you follow Ron Bracken's fairwell tour at the Centre Daily Times. It's been a good read so far. This weekend he covered his top ten Penn State games of his career.

Penn State 35, Illinois 31

When Penn State took possession of the football that November night in 1994 there was 6:07 left, the Lions had the ball on their own 6, they were trailing Illinois 31-28, it was raining and the wind had picked up in Memorial Stadium in Champaign, Ill.

No problem at all. Kerry Collins ignored all of those factors and marched the team down the field for the 35-31 win in as flawless a drive as you’ll ever see. There was no margin for error, no room for an off-sides penalty, a botched handoff, a dropped or errant pass or a wrongly run pass route. It all had to be perfect and it was, completing Penn State’s recovery from a 21-0 first-quarter deficit and guaranteeing a trip to the Rose Bowl.

I'm afraid I was too young to remember most of the games on his list, but I remembered this one. Reading Bracken's recollection of the 1994 Illinois game brought back a lot of memories for me. I remember falling behind 21-0 in the first quarter and not even worrying about it. That offense was so amazing you knew they were going to score 30 points before the day was over. So when Brian Milne crossed the goal line I really didn't even jump off the couch. That team was amazing.

Need More Proof Mel Kiper is an Idiot?

Remember last year Kiper had Dan Connor listed as the best linebacker in the draft and a sure fire top ten pick? Then he sat around on draft day and didn't go until the third round on day two. If that doesn't make you scratch your head about Mel Kiper, take into consideration that James Laurinaitus tops his big board for 2009.

1. James Laurinaitis, LB, Ohio State (6-2½, 242)

If he had declared for the 2008 NFL draft, Laurinaitis most likely would have been a top-10 pick. In addition to being extremely athletic, he has a great nose for the ball and plays with a great deal of intensity. In 2007, he had 121 tackles (8½ for loss), five interceptions and two sacks. What separates Laurinaitis from USC's Rey Maualuga is his week-to-week consistency.

Yeah, he has a great nose for the ball alright. That's because teams run right at him all the time. And he usually makes the tackle about five or seven yards down field from the line of scrimmage. And of course it helps to have a generous home field score keeper who gives you credit for a solo tackle any time you jump on a pile.

Student Ticket Changes

If you're a student hoping to get student tickets next year you better listen up. You'll only get one shot  to get them.

Despite what was written in an e-mail about the 2008 student football ticket allocation, students can only purchase 2008 football season tickets during one sale period.

 

Although the e-mail, sent Thursday night, suggests upperclassmen will have multiple opportunities to purchase tickets, that is not the case, Greg Myford, associate director of marketing and communication, said Friday.

Tickets were so much less confusing when I went to school. There was no internet. you just mailed in your form with your check within a week of getting it in the mail and you were set. This getting up at 7 AM and mashing the mouse button really sucks for the students today. I feel bad for you guys. But I think tying the student tickets to the ID cards is going to help a lot next year.

Great Scott

I know it's hard to believe this, but some people actually want to poach our assistant basketball coaches. And last week someone actually succeeded.

Assistant Nittany Lion basketball coach Hilliary Scott has been named the new head coach at Lynchburg College in Lynchburg, Va.

The NCAA Division III Hornets introduced Scott as their new head coach Thursday afternoon. Scott will be taking on his first head coaching position after 11 years as an assistant coach, 10 under Nittany Lion head coach Ed DeChellis. Scott has served the last five years on DeChellis' Penn State staff and spent the previous five years helping DeChellis guide East Tennessee State University to three straight Southern Conference North Division titles and the school's first NCAA Tournament appearance in a decade.

This is a huge loss for the men's basketball program. Scott was our best recruiter on the staff and will be very difficult to replace. But it sounds like he left for personal reasons, so we wish him the best of luck in Lynchburg.

Etcetera

Purdue safety Torri Williams is arrested for shoplifting. That in itself is funny, but it's what he was busted trying to purchase with the five finger discount that takes the cake. This is why you will never read about a Purdue football player paying for prostitutes. They can't even afford to buy condoms.

After spending a few hours in the hospital being treated for dehydration, Joe Paterno was sent home and is doing fine.

Penn State coach Joe Paterno spent several hours at a hospital being treated for dehydration before returning home late Thursday.

The 81-year-old coach had been working at home late in the morning when he began feeling nauseated and was taken by ambulance to Mount Nittany Medical Center, team spokesman Guido D'Elia said. Paterno had tests at the hospital but was not admitted.

Paterno was released and back home Thursday evening, and doctors determined he suffered from dehydration, team officials said.

Phew. We don't need any more close calls like that one.

I freaked out just like you did when I read the headline , but apparently it's not too serious.

Joe Paterno was taken by ambulance to Mount Nittany Medical Center this morning where he is being treated for dehydration, said Guido D'Elia, spokesman for Penn State Football

D'Elia said he was taken to the hospital after complaining of nausea, weakness and fatigue. Tests are being performed to rule out heart and other problems, and so far the tests have come back negative, D'Elia said.

"They're just treating him for dehydration," D'Elia said.

Paterno is scheduled to travel Austin, Texas tomorrow, and D'Elia said at 2 p.m. that he still expects to make the trip.

If he has the stomach bug thing I've been fighting for the past five days I know exactly how he feels. I was layed out in bed all day yesterday, and it was not fun. Let's hope he's feeling better soon.

Ok, so this is embarrassing. Apparently when they sent me an email saying BSD HD was taking effect on Thursday they meant Thursday night. Which means we'll have to wait until Friday morning to play with the shiney bicycle. I regret the error. Please pick up a consolation pair of tube socks for your trouble on your way out.

Tonight there may be a short site outage for an hour or two while they upgrade to the BSD HD as we're calling it around here. Then tomorrow when you fire up your web browser there should be a nice shiney bicycle under the tree waiting for us all.

Have a good evening.

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Indeed, this Thursday morning Black Shoe Diaries as you know it will come to an end. But we're not closing up shop here at BSD. We're going to be upgrading to the new SBNation platform. Call it BSD 2.0 if you will.

What is not going to change

1. The BSD URL will still be www.blackshoediaries.com
2. BSD will still be a Penn State blog.
3. The logo and blog colors.
4. I'll still be here putting together these crappy posts, though my new network name will be BSD. Can you believe the user name "Mike" was already taken?
5. Like a moth to the flame you'll still come here to waste valuable minutes of your life to read said crappy posts.

What is going to change

Holy crap. Where to start?

1. Fanposts - The Diaries will now be called Fanposts. They're basically the same thing with a 1000% cooler name. Only now we give you tools to really express yourself. You can highlight text in bold or italic. You can strike through text or put a box around a quotation. You can create bullet points and lists. You can create links to interesting articles. And you can do it all without having to dig out your complicated html cheat sheet as BSD 2.0 will provide you with all of these features at the click of a button.
2. Fanshots - Want to share a funny picture or video you think other BSD readers would enjoy? Or maybe you just want to point out an article without having to give a 300 character essay on it. Learn to use the Fanshots. Fanshots are quick posts that just say "Hey, check this out" without having to write a book to do it or fill in 300 characters of garbage.
3. Network Wide Access - You can go visit other sports blogs from time to time. I swear I won't get too jealous. The beauty of SBN 2.0 is that now you can cruise among all the SBN blogs without having to remember 20 different user names and passwords. One user name and one password will give you access to all of the sites. All you have to do is click the "Join" button on a blog to instantly take part in the community discussion after you are logged into another site.
4. More Information - With the click of a button you will have access to stats, scores, rosters, and schedules for Nittany Lion football and mens basketball.
5. Auto-Refreshing Comments - The comments section will automatically refresh every few seconds almost giving a chat room feel to them. Game day threads as we know them will never be the same.
6. Power To The People - SBN 2.0 will give the blog reader unprecedented power to customize their settings and interact with the online community. You will have an SBN profile page where you can list the blogs you frequent, customize the look of the front page to your liking, and attach an avatar to all of your comments, Fanposts, and Fanshots. Reward readers that offer intelligent views by recommending their posts and comments to others while flagging spammers and inappropriate comments to draw the attention of the blog administrator.

What You Should Do

If you want to get a head start on the new platform you can visit any number of SBN blogs that have already made the transition and sign up for an account. Once you do that follow the directions to claim your old accounts on the SBNation blogs you visit. That way you will get credit for all of your old comments.

Then if you want to you can visit one of the migrated blogs (BON is a good one) and start familiarizing yourself with the different features. Or if you just want to wait it out until Thursday and learn it on the fly that's fine too.

Interesting read in the Daily Collegian about a little known 75-hour rule all Penn State sports teams must abide by. The 75 hour rule states that no athletic team or student athlete can be absent from class for more than 75 hours per semester. From what I gather in the article, this is not an NCAA mandate, but rather a restriction Penn State places on itself. Many within the Penn State athletic department feel it puts our teams at an unfair disadvantage compared to other schools.

Now before anyone says this is why we're killing outselves in football, read the article and don't.

Bring On Coastal Carolina

There is No Name On My Jersey is already hitting the offseason wall as he has a preview of Coastal Carolina 120 days out from the contest. If you're dying for some real football analysis, go read it. In typical Homer-JB fashion he picks Penn State to win by 40 points. I think if Penn State fielded a team of 18 inch JoePa's he would still pick Penn State to win by three touchdowns. 18 inch Poz's would win by 100.

Pete Lisicky Scores!

David Jones confirms what most of us already knew. It's good to be Pete Lisicky.

And I thought playing basketball in Europe was a bad thing.

Dammit, Don't Call Me After 10

When Joe says don't call me after 10, he means in the morning. I was reading Sean Fitz's interview with Malcom Willis, the Maryland safety that committed to the Lions earlier this week, where Willis said he called Joe right after school to give him the good news. Here was Joe's response. (Note: Content from a premium article reproduced with consent from Blue-White Illustrated)

Make your own jokes.

Etcetera

Fox ranks the top 25 college football uniforms. Penn State comes in at #9.

It's rare that you will ever see BSD get in a pissing contest with the traditional media, or the "mainstream media" as they like to call themselves. A sports writer has to say something pretty stupid to ruffle my feathers. But it does happen, like last night when sports writer Buzz Bissinger shouted down Will Leitch from Deadspin on HBO. (Warning: May not be suitable for work due to foul language)

When you can't even get your first point out before the person brought on the show to offer a counter point to yours interjects and says you are "full of shit", it's probably not going to be a fun night. To Will's credit, he handled it beautifully just being polite and letting the vulgar piece of trash make an ass of himself. How ironic it was to watch Bissinger accuse Leitch of being vulgar and vile while calling Leitch "full of shit" and saying blogging "really pisses the shit" out of him. Then he dropped this line.

As a blogger, this really offends me. Would anyone out there say BSD is "dedicated to cruelty" if we make a joke about Joe Paterno's age? Or what if we craft a photoshop of Joe Paterno running to the outhouse on the sideline? Is that cruel? Maybe it is cruel. But it's also damn funny, which is part of the reason why you all keep coming back here as well as visiting other blogs: to be entertained. We all come here to escape real life for a brief period of time. We come here to forget about our jobs, our nagging bosses, our overbooked social lives, and whatever other problems we may have. Sports are a perfect outlet for such escapes, and sports blogging is becoming the 21st century extension of sports. So while it may be cruel to make fun of Joe Paterno's bathroom habits, nobody takes it seriously. Joe Paterno was caught on live national television running across the field with the squirts. Do you really think he cares what we're saying about him on this piece of crap blog?

Bissinger then states that blogs are "dedicated to journalistic dishonesty". I take major exception to this. First of all, I have never considered myself to be a journalist. I have no desire to be a journalist. I'm not interested in breaking stories and "creating" news. I prefer to react to what I see and offer my opinions and analysis. I rarely get inside scoops, and the ones I get come from people I've never met before and have no reason to believe. So I almost never run those stories until I read them from a credible source. When I do reveal inside information I always quantify it with a "rumor" disclaimer. I'm never going to state something as fact unless I believe it to be 100% true. Never.

According to Bissinger, blogs are contributing to the "complete dumbing down of America". Wow. And here I was blaming American Idol. But don't snicker at me, dear reader. Bissinger is blaming you for this one. It's clearly evident from the Deadspin text he and Costas were quoting that they cannot and do not differentiate between bloggers and commenters. Feel free to rip me apart for anything I say on BSD, but don't attack me for what my readers say. It's rather infuriating when someone attacks your blog because a reader made a comment suggesting they would cheer for Hitler over an SEC team.

But this begs the question: as the administrator of this tube of the internest, if I do not rebuke the comment, erase it, and ban the author, am I accepting responsibility for it? Hell no. Freedom of speech is what makes blogging great. I can throw my opinions out there without fear of the government throwing me in jail. But I do have to fear the BSD readers. When I call Malcolm Jenkins a "fucking liar" you are quick to voice your displeasure in my choice of language by flooding my email box. When I trash the Big East conference I get flamed in email as well as the comments from the Pitt and Rutgers trolls. It comes with the territory and I've learned to let it roll off my back. I have to accept the fact there are millions of people surfing the internet, and more than a few of them are going to think I'm a moron. I'll take responsibility for the things I say, but I'll be damned if I'm going to take responsibility for something some asshole says in my comments section. That's on you.

The beauty of blogs, and Costas and Bissinger clearly don't get this, is that we're not newspapers. We are communities. We are a group of people sharing a common interest who need a place to meet and talk about it. The things you read and say here are no different from the things you would hear and say at a tailgate party. That's how I view BSD. I'm not interested in building the stat meter so I can generate ad revenue. All I wanted when I started blogging was a place I could voice my opinions and exchange ideas with people. Ask me if I would prefer to have 10,000 hits per day and 10 comments per post or 1000 hits per day and 100 comments per post and I'll take more comments every time. Each comment is like a little present to me. When I open up BSD and see 1 New next to the comments I can't wait to open it and read it. Though lately I must confess this community has grown large enough to the point I honestly don't have time to read all of them. I scan through them to make sure everything stays civil and there aren't any flame wars brewing, but it blows my mind to see some of these comment threads grow to 30, 40, or 50 comments. I couldn't be more proud of what you and I have built here, and I hope you're proud of it too.

So call Bissinger a douchebag or whatever. I'm tired of the whole media vs. blogger thing. Many bloggers I know overreact to these types of things. Any time a reporter writes something even remotely resembles something they wrote three years ago they cry plagiarism. It's a little over the top, but I do think bloggers deserve more respect than they're given. As Leitch says in the video, blogging is hard damn work. These posts don't research and write themselves. And the overwhelming majority of us are not getting paid to do it either. That is all. End of rant.