The Penn St. Nittany Lions and the JoePa Experience

To paraphrase a rotund cable sports personality, no one circles the wagons like Joe Paterno. Every time people try to start shoveling dirt on his career, he comes out of the gates undefeated and has his team in the Top 10 and angling for BCS glory.

And everytime this occurs as is happening this season as 6-0 Penn St. goes on the road to Camp Randall Stadium to take on the Wisconsin Badgers, the fact that Joe is too old and too out of touch to get out on the road and make personal recruiting visits is alternately perceived as wisely “delegating” those responsibilities to his younger assistants. And, of course, Penn St. goes from having a “stagnating program” without any “succession plan” in a post-JoePa world to that of “Joe’s feeling great and the passion is still there so don’t expect him to step down any time soon”.

While back at Penn St. a couple of weeks back, never more did we witness a football program and an entire Unversity that was dominated more by the past legacy and current force of personality of a single person than there in State College, PA. And we saw this fully-justified reverence/kool-aid drinking dichotomy, firsthand, along with some rather interesting rationalizations for a big-time college football program: “Actually, the program is designed to make a run at the BCS championship (only) every 4 or 5 years.”

And don’t delude yourself for a moment to think that Joe’s (pending?) retirement plans are not inextricably tied to those of Florida St.’s Bobby Bowden, who is in a very similar situation and who is locked in a Wild West stare-down with JoePa as the two vie for the honor of most collegiate coaching victories. (Currently, Paterno has 378 and Bowden sits at 376. Who’s gonna blink first?

Anyway, good read here regarding Greg Schiano, former Paterno assistant, current Rutgers HC and alleged heir apparent to Paterno and who has, himself, what would appear to be some “stagnation” problems with his football program that is of this posting, 1-4.

Time to Go.

Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno share more than a few things in common. Both the Florida St. and Penn St. football coaches are living legends, good friends and both sit atop the all-time Div. I-A (we still can't get used to/remember what it is they now want us to call it) career coaching victories list. Also, both are holding their respective programs hostage as they show no signs of wanting to step down while the programs have slipped into mediocrity over the past several seasons.

And when asked about how long they intend on coaching, they both respond with something of a breezy and dismissive air of entitlement as if to say, "Don't you worry your pretty little head 'bout them things - I got everything under contol so just run along now." (People close to the Penn St. program say that Paterno does not even make recruiting visits anymore and while Bobby Bowden has some sort of succession plan in place with Offensive Coordinator, Jimbo Fisher, no such plan is even being considered in Happy Valley).

But while Paterno shows at least some fire when dealing with off-field issues (a string of incidents last off-season including an ugly brawl at a party led Paterno to conscript the entire roster to clean-up Beaver Stadium on the Sundays after Nittany Lion home games), Bowden’s nonchalance in the face of continuing off-field problems for his players is troubling.

An academic scandal that was uncovered last year continues to unfold and continues to claim casualties. 36 players were ruled ineligible for last year’s Music City Bowl and at least 7 starters and roughly 20 subs will be ineligible for the first 3 games of this season.

But when asked how this scandal affected him and if he felt responsible his answer was:

"It didn't bother me because I knew there was no involvement by me or my staff. But I didn't know about it until the president told me. My staff didn't know about it until I told them. I know some people will say 'you're the head coach' but there are a number of things like this that the head coach does not know."

We’re happy to know that Bowden feels absolved because his coaching staff wasn’t involved and that he is so out of touch with his own program the University President was the one who broke him the bad news.

… Uhhh, coach… there is this concept within the NCAA rules and regulations known as “institutional control”, whereby you as the coach do not need to be even remotely aware the rule-breaking that is occurring on your watch but which still holds you ultimately responsible.

And what’s doubly disappointing is that in giving that answer he appears to be distancing himself from his players, effectively signalling that the players are on their own in this matter instead of stepping into a leadership and disciplinary role.

Its clear that the game and the times have passed by Bowden and Paterno who seem to possess neither the energy nor awareness to what is transpiring around them to be effective leaders and faces of these once-proud football schools.

H/T: AOL FanHouse