Monday's taping of ESPN's "Difference Makers: Life Lessons with Paterno and Krzyzewski." with Duke men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski at Eisenhower Auditorium brought a lot of praise to Joe Paterno and his tight ship. Today, the Wall Street Journal keeps the good headlines coming in a piece on major college programs without major rules violations since the NCAA began tracking them in 1953 including Northwestern, Boston College, Stanford and Penn State.
Given that football is the most-common culprit in major-violations cases, it's somewhat surprising that football power Penn State made the list. If there's any one obvious difference at the school, it's that the head coach, Joe Paterno, is the longest-tenured coach at any one school in FBS history (he took over in 1966). One of the common pitfalls for schools is a new coaching staff that comes in feeling a load of pressure to win quickly—something Paterno is essentially immune to.
At the same time as its conference rival, Ohio State, is being filleted like a like a salmon for it's major rules violations, Penn State is being held up as the standard for doing things the right way, and that can only help Paterno and Co. as they hit the recruiting trail to mine what is supposedly a strong Pennsylvania crop this year. For years, the Buckeyes have been encroaching on the Nittany Lions' recruiting turf, but with all its good headlines in the face of Ohio State's bad ones, you have to like Penn State's odds of not just stemming the tide, but maybe pushing back a little bit.
Now that the dust is settling in Columbus, the vultures are beginning to circle, and Penn State is positioned to be one of the biggest and baddest of them all. Quite a reversal from just six months ago when rumors of Paterno's demise were running rampant and half the quarterbacks on the roster were trying to skip town.
Stability wins again.