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The Pittsburgh media really gets on my nerves sometimes.

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This is old news by now, but the Maxwell club is creating an award this year called the Joe Paterno Award. Here are the criteria.

The criteria for the Paterno Award, which are still being developed, will focus more on the overall impact the coach has had on the sport, his players and the community, going beyond the wins and losses of that particular season.

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. In a way I think it's great that Paterno's name would be associated with such an award, but I hope they do this right. There are a lot of sleazy coaches out there that win a lot of games. My pick for the inaugural award would be Pat Fitzgerald, unless they want to give it to Joe Paterno. When you think about it, who would be better suited for the Joe Paterno award than Joe Paterno?

The Daily Gopher put together a list of the most disappointing teams in Big Ten basketball this season. Not surprisingly, Penn State made the list. But I was surprised that he put us third on the list ahead of Michigan and Northwestern. TDG has this to say.

Penn State is playing great right now.  This may be the best 11-seed in Big Ten Tournament history.  They finished the season 3-3 over their last six games and all three losses were very close to the three teams tied for 1st atop the Big Ten.  Lost to Ohio State by eight, lost at Michigan State by two and lost to Purdue by 4.  This team is hitting their stride, don't tell them it is far too little, too late.

Woo Big Ten Tournament and all that.

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Earning it.  Penn State Baseball 2010 is on its way after this past weekend's Big Ten/BIG EAST Challenge.  Game winners early and often:

In the three games of the Challenge, Penn State won in 12, won in 13 and lost in 10. They haven't yet played a regulation baseball game.

As for the rest of the league, Ohio State leads the early standings at 5-1; they also sit atop the RPI ranking list.  

One of the things that came up when we were all talking about Texas and Big Ten expansion was the minor issue of them having a real baseball team and the midwest conference having none.  Although quite early, you get a glimpse of this when you look at the Big Ten's current RPI rankings, topping out at 90 and dipping way, way down below that.  A look at the 2009 final RPI says this is about right although a bit weighed down: the league finished last season with two teams in the top 50 and seven lower than the 100 spot.

(Industrial-sized T/F/J to UncleLar at Happy Valley Hardball, who is your go-to-guy for all things Nittany and baseball.)

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Finally.  Google maps does Beaver Stadium.

 

Have fun here. Want more fun?  Here, here and here.

I'll say it. The 2005 season was magical.  Using the word "magical" is tired and lame and frankly kind of annoying -- but it's also appropriate.  The Dark Years can't really be described with the tools language provides. As exhilarating as the Indiana goalline stand was in 2004, remember what it was: a goalline stand against Indiana.  Backs were against the wall, and things didn't end in total embarrassment. 

I'm straying; back to 2005.  Noncon play was encouraging, but our souls were way too torn to actually elevate hope.  The Northwestern game was not great football, but when you consider the four turnovers the team overcame, and the leadership we saw in Robinson, well it was a heck of a win.  

And then, of course, there was Ohio State.  The atmosphere every game that will every be played will be measured up against.  

All of this is a very long way of reminding you that "no," 2005 was not and could never have been a championship season.  The past has a way of blurring as we move forward.  This happened to Rittenberg when he called Penn State's 2005 team the second best of the Big Ten's decade:

If not for a Michigan touchdown on the final play at the Big House, Penn State could have been playing for a national title. The Nittany Lions still went on to an 11-1 finish and an Orange Bowl championship as Big Ten MVP Michael Robinson led the way at quarterback.

That Michigan loss was painful, trust me I was there, but you've got it all wrong, man.  Had Penn State won that game, held on and finished with a 12-0 season, you know what would have happened in January?  This:

Penn State 26, Florida State 23, 3 OT

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Penn State wins.  It's no secret:

Penn State's dramatic victory over LSU in the 2010 Capital One Bowl earned a six percent television ratings increase over the 2009 contest and was seen in more than 7.8 million U.S. TV households.

The Nittany Lions' 19-17 win over the Tigers earned a 6.8 rating for the ABC national telecast on New Year's Day, tied with the FedEx Orange Bowl for the fifth-highest rated bowl among the 34 post-season contests this past season.

So a tie despite the CapOne (1) not being a BCS game, and (2) not being played in prime time.  Not a bad chip to have for down the road.

This is a press release, which usually means it's void of any interesting language or original thought, but it looks like one got by the web editor:

The 1994 Penn State-Michigan game is third with 3.397 million households, followed by the 2005 PSU-MSU contest (3.446 m.). The 2007 win over Notre Dame (3.31 m.) is No. 6 and the Nittany Lions' 2008 thumping of Michigan is No. 7 at 3.23 million homes.

I approve this message.

We all dislike change on some level, and I guess that means we're all Joe Paterno, really.  For example:

"Mike's said he wants to be the Joe Paterno of Oregon State," DeCarolis told the paper. "So we'll put something together to make (his contract) a lifetime deal." 

The discussion is always "best ever?", and the answer is always impossible to settle on.  You have to give The Bear his elite teams at Alabama.  No one had a run quite like Bowden's in the 1990s.  There are guys like Eddie Robinson.

But, besides the all time win record, Joe has become the name to drop when discussing loyalty.  That's a pretty cool thing.

Oh, and thanks one more time Carroll.  For this:

Southern California losing charismatic coach Pete Carroll three weeks before national signing day could not have come at a worse time recruiting-wise for the Trojans. But the timing could be right for Ohio State.

"I think it gives the Buckeyes the edge with Seantrel Henderson," longtime recruiting analyst Tom Lemming said. Henderson, an offensive lineman from St. Paul, Minn., is the No. 1 prospect in the country, according to Rivals.com.

Comeon with that recruiting wall already, Brewster.

Why wouldn't we want another, less nerdy Northwestern?  The Sports Economist did a fine job following the bowl season, this was especially interesting now that expansion is still just as likely as it ever was a "priority":

For the second year in a row, a bowl trip will leave Missouri's athletic department in the red, making Thursday's Texas Bowl a losing endeavor in more ways than one.

[...]

The article makes one thing clear: if a team's fans don't travel to bowl games, they are going to be knocked down in the bowl selection pecking order (as Missouri has been each of the past three years).

So explain to me again why anyone thinks Missouri would be a good thing for the Big Ten? Besides having all the matchup excitement of a, say, a distant cousin of Illinois, they would do us all the pleasure of actually losing money in their bowl games, not only lowering the total pot but then taking out a twelfth of it, leaving a whole serving less for the rest of the schools.  

In scores of other games.  Even with their loss and yardage domination by Penn State, LSU is still pretty clearly the #3 team in the SEC...admittedly way too early rankings have Penn State at 19.

Odds are.  The Big Ten bowl season starts tomorrow:

And lines have shaken out.  With a total of seven games, only two teams (Penn State and Minnesota) are favored, and both by under a field goal.   But only two of the five dogs are getting a touchdown or more as dogs.

It's hard to see the results work out to be anything except meah.  Penn State is probably the best-suited team of the whole lineup, and that's not encouraging.  No games are safe wins, and Northwestern and Michigan State are likely losers.  Most likely optimistic yet realistic scenario seems to be a 4-3 record, with 2-5 possible and 0-7 in the cards.

Although with last year's pathetic 1-6, all you can really hope for is improvement.

But there is this: bowl record isn't nearly as important as BCS performance.  And forgive me for not putting a lot of stock in an Iowa team that will be starting a quarterback who's been injured for two month and Ohio State going to the Rose Bowl with a guy who is so focused he didn't even pack the right cloths for the trip.

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Starting next week I'll try to get into full blown LSU preview mode, but for now go read David Jones's article. He gives a pretty good recap of the Tigers and suggests their fans really aren't into this game.

But try as they might to raise their “Geaux, Tigers!” banners and smile, LSU fans do so this postseason with gritted teeth. A 9-3 ledger isn’t cutting it for two main reasons.
   
First, they are spoiled rotten. By two BCS national titles in the prior six seasons — the first under Nick Saban in 2003, the second just two years ago under current coach Les Miles. By nine straight bowls, six of the New Year’s Day variety, since Saban resurrected the program in 2000. It’s easy now for purple people to forget what a mess this operation was through the late 1980s and all of the ’90s excepting a brief mid-decade resurgence under Gerry DiNardo.
   
Second, and most acute, they are driven batty by the way their Tigers and their coach gave away the third loss to Mississippi. The abysmal management of that game by Miles in the final minute squandered a chance to win it.

Hooray Post Season Awards

Joe Paterno has been named a finalist for the Liberty Mutual Coach of the Year Award.

Penn State coach Joe Paterno has been selected as one of 10 Football Bowl Subdivision finalists for the 2009 Liberty Mutual Coach of the Year Award. The award, now in its fourth year, celebrates college football coaches who demonstrate sportsmanship, integrity and responsibility on and off the field.

I'm happy for the coach and all, but I'm not sure he's really deserving of such an award THIS year. Penn State actually regressed from 2008 when they won the conference with only one loss. I think it's pretty obvious he was put on the list as a lifetime achievement-type thing. In my opinion there are much more deserving coaches this year like Paul Johnson, Kirk Ferentz, or Al Golden.

Basketball

Keep in mind that Saturday night is perhaps Penn State's biggest out of conference game of the year when the Virginia Tech Hokies come to the Jordan Center. The game will be televised at 7 PM on ESPN2. We'll have an open thread for you here.

I'll take those odds.  We really are looking at a coin flip for the Fiesta.  Rittenberg has some good quotes from those who run things:

"We've got a long and storied history with Penn State," Alba said. "They've been here six times and are 6-0. We kind of grew up together, in a lot of ways. They were very instrumental in our growth and our development. ... On the other hand, you look at Iowa, and we've never had them. We have no history with them, but they have been on our wish list for many, many years. We've always tried to get them, and for whatever reason, it just never was able to work out. "You look at both universities, and there's appeal on both sides for different reasons."

It all seems very interesting but isn't, and the theme is that Alba is totally uncommitted to anything and wants people to know it.  Iowa isn't taking this quietly (TFJ: BHGP):

As far as our football team, I'm not here to pit us against anyone else, but I think a couple things really stand out. If you look at our team, the way they've competed on the field, the head to head results that we've had, we did beat six Bowl eligible teams. Two of them were non conference games. So we're proud of that certainly. And I thought our guys did a great job taking a very challenging road schedule, and they embraced that with four victories and an overtime defeat at a very, very tough opponent's home field.

So they're sticking with the head-to-head thing, although I'm not sure the Fiesta Bowl people actually care about that.  It at least sets up for a nice "we've been robbed" moment if Iowa is passed on.

And of course all of this is a wash if Nebraska can somehow do the impossible this weekend against Texas.  A Husker win puts the Big Ten decision with the Orange Bowl, in which case I really like our chances or maybe it's all a wash in the OB taking Texas.

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Hayes x6? Hayes may ask for a sixth year:

Given his unfortunate circumstances, Hayes, a fifth-year senior, said he would consider asking the NCAA for a sixth-year of eligibility once the regular season ends on Nov. 21 at Michigan State.

"It's definitely something that I will talk to with my parents and I will talk to Coach Paterno about after the season," Hayes said Wednesday. "But with how we're feeling right now, we just really wanna focus on these next couple of games and hopefully [during] the time period we get before the bowl game, we'll be able to sit down and speak to Coach about that."

No injury has bothered me more than the second one Hayes suffered.  If anyone deserves a break, it's this guy.

Then who will throw the Stanziballs?  The gunslinging leader of Iowa is out until bowl season, and you know what that means: your Vegas line has moved from 13 all the way up to 17.  This is the same line we saw when Minnesota visited The Shoe.  Take what you want from that news.

The Penn State line might be stranger, though.  It opened at 21, no one had regular season ending surgery, and it jumped all the way up to Penn State as a 26-point favorite.  Feel free to guess why in the comments; I have no idea.

About Wisconsin.  I'll admit it, they snuck up on me too.  Rittenberg power ranks:

T-3. Wisconsin (7-2, 4-2): Is there a more under-the-radar 7-2 team than Wisconsin? The Badgers quietly keep winning, though Saturday's game against Indiana got pretty interesting down the stretch. Freshman running back Montee Ball really picked up teammate John Clay (concussion), and the Badgers' ground attack surged yet again. Wisconsin remains in good shape for a 10-2 season.

T-3. Penn State (8-2, 4-2): Because of a soft schedule, Penn State had only two chances for signature wins this season and it failed on both. Despite getting both Iowa and Penn State at Beaver Stadium, the Nittany Lions couldn't generate much offense and endured surprising breakdowns on special teams. Penn State could have seen its chances for a BCS at-large berth vanish after Saturday's poor performance.

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