Greetings and welcome to another addition of the Blue White Roundtable. This is supposed to be my week for the questions, but I filled in for RUTS last week. I was going to do them again this week until RUTS said he would in exchange for me doing it last week. Then Galen messed everything up and asked to do them this week since he's going on vacation next week. I have no idea what's happening next week, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. There's important business to discuss today so put the women and children to bed and let's get to it.
Let's get the recruiting questions out of the way first - two-sport star Terrelle Pryor, has narrowed his college choices to 11 schools and eliminated Pitt after a verbal commitment to play basketball for the Panthers in the spring of 2006. With PSU still one of his 11, does this look good for the Nittany Lions?
I think Penn State is in very good shape with Pryor. I would be surprised if we weren't one of his top three schools right now. We're close to home for him and our quarterback situation is pretty favorable that he could see early playing time.
A lot of people harp on the fact that he wants to play basketball in college. That may help or hurt Penn State's chances. Our basketball team is, well, less than good. Some say he will not want to play on a losing team, but then it could also mean he could step off the football field in January and get playing time right away. If he chose Ohio State or some other good basketball program he would be at a serious disadvantage to the kids that were focusing on basketball all year round.
Do you think Paterno's injury is hampering recruiting?
I don't know if the injury is hampering recruiting, but the fact that Joe doesn't travel isn't helping recruiting. JoePa has historically proven to be very persuasive when he gets face time with a kid. It has to hurt us somewhat that guys like Urban Meyer, Charlie Weis, and Pete Carroll are racking up the frequent flyer miles visiting all these recruits in May and our coach is holed up in his den at home talking to his coaches over speaker phone. I'm not sure if Joe isn't travelling because of the injury or because at 80 years old he just doesn't want to travel. He can't talk to the kids anyway so maybe he sees it as a waste of time.
Maybe it doesn't hurt us as much as we think. By rule, coaches can visit high schools in the month of May, but they are not supposed to talk to recruits. They can only talk to the high school coaches. If they happen to run into a recruit they can exchange hellos and handshakes, but that is supposed to be it.
Paterno recently said that this year's football team has as much skill-position talent as any he has coached in a while (''maybe since 1994,'' he said) but needs leadership to temper its youth. Do you agree?
I think that's a good assessment. I think Morelli has better arm strength and mechanics than Kerry Collins did. We're definitely deeper at wide receiver than we were in 1994 and Andrew Quarless is definitely a great tight end as physically gifted though less experienced than Kyle Brady. But Ki-Jana Carter to Austin Scott is a huge drop off. And while we may have a lot of talent at the skill positions, it doesn't mean anything if you have a pourous offensive line. The 1994 offensive line had two or three guys that went on to have long careers in the NFL. So far on this squad nobody appears to have that potential. I think we'll be better on offense than we were in 2006, but whether we compare to the 1994 remains to be seen.
Florida made basketball coach Billy Donovan and football coach Urban Meyer the highest-paid basketball-football coaching tandem costing the University more than $40 million through 2013. Are coaches' salaries getting out of control or is it just par for the course?
The ante has been risen. More and more money goes into college sports every year. The BCS and television contracts have created this monster. I don't know if a college football coach is worthy of making millions a year. But if people say the coaches bring in ten times that in football and basketball revenue and choose to ignore the contribution the athletes make, then I have a problem with that. It's not fair to ride the backs of these athletes to make big corporations rich and not give them a share of the pie. Could a college athlete's union be in the not-too-distant future?
The NCAA recently booted Brian Bennett, a writer for The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal, for live blogging a game of the NCAA baseball tournament. Was the NCAA just or should we bloggers rise up and unit in protest?
Unfortunately bloggers still fight the image of us portrayed in the media. People think we're just low life schmucks sitting in our pajamas in our mom's basement floating unsubstantiated rumors with the intent of ruining people's careers. This is a huge setback for blogging if allowed to stand.
When I first started this blog I had aspirations of someday getting a press pass to the Penn State games and press conferences. As time goes on I realize that probably will not happen. I'm afraid once you get a press pass from the University you are almost obligated to toe the company line and put forth the program in a positive light at all times. Choose to ignore that obligation and they can revoke your press credentials at any time. I'm never going to allow BSD to fall into that trap.
I think we should all recognize something here. I'm a blogger. Not a journalist. Journalists are obligated to be fair and balanced. I'm not and nor do I want to be. I started this blog because I'm a Penn State fan. I want to cheer for Penn State. I want to give virtual high fives to everyone that reads BSD when we win. I want to be able to comfort PSU fans when we lose. I want to be able to openly say Coach X should be fired. I want this to be a place where I can give my opinions openly as a fan. If press credentials ever endangered that, you can take them and shove them up your ass for all I care. </rant>
Lightning Round
Where will Zach Frazer end up?
Honestly, who cares? He had his chance to go to Penn State and he gave us the finger. Now Charlie found a new girl to take to the prom. We've got Pat Devlin now. Go pound sand. (That blogger question still has my blood boiling.)
The Phillies are four games out of first place - now that Philly fans are sucked back in and have hope, how long till they tank and drive fans suicidal again?
Hellooooo! Mets fan here!!!! Phillies Bad = BSD Happy!
How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?
As an engineer I've often pondered this. There is no absolute answer. The answer instead is a formula. The number of licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop is directly proportional to the surface area of the tongue doing the licking with a saliva factor mixed in there. As the tootsie pop gets smaller, the ratio of surface area between the tongue and lolly pop increases thus speeding up the process so you've got a log rhythmic factor in there as well. I've never been able to nail down a definite answer, but I suspect an African Pygmy would probably get through in about 350 licks while Gene Simmons can get through one in about four.
That's one big Tootsie Pop licker!
That's all for this week. Go check out The Nittany Line and Run Up The Score to see what they have to say. And tune in next week when Galen shares his life and death story about getting drunk, losing his money, and waking up married to some crack whore in the Elvis Suite of the MGM in Las Vegas.