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"This man knows... RT @caplannfl Bill O'Brien will stay at Penn St. No more interviews, source confirmed. There you go."
Great for PSU. Without him, they were going to plummet. Maybe now they will be able to ride their punishment out.
Pretty surprising. Will get their commits all sorts of excited.
Damn it, I really wanted to see a full-blown meltdown in Happy Valley. Especially if PSU had a mass exodus of players after O'Brien left
I don't.
Tell us how you really feel, alan branch.
I am not ready to be happy, or even neutral, for PSU in any way. I don't know when/if I will. I understand that the scholarship/bowl restrictions are going to crush PSU over the next decade, but I want that descent to happen faster.
I couldn't disagree more. PSU definitely didn't get off easy for its wrongdoings (as horrible as they were), and the Big Ten really could use another good program or two. Well, at least until our new mega-power schools show up from the East Coast.
I guess I just don't particularly care for PSU fans, the ones I know are dicks, and a lot of the fan response to the scandal was pretty bad. I think they got overhit too, and I see why you would want another strong Big Ten program, but I just don't care. The divisions, and Rutgers and Maryland being added for no reason other than money.....well I just don't care about the Big Ten anymore.
I work with several Penn State grads and they are nice people and classy fans.
You need to hang out with better people.
I've never met a PSU fan that's a dick. Maybe you attract dicks.
And I've been a huge hater, and very vocal about it. With that, I'm glad he is staying because my perception is that he is what they need, and I hope he would stay for the sake of the players that are sticking it out. PSU culture was really screwed up enough to let that mess happen. I don't care so much about the fans, but for some reason, in my gut, all season I was pulling for those players who stayed. I'm glad he's staying.
"Not let you off easy." I could care less if they have nice fans or if it weakens osu's schedule. They should have got the death penalty. What they did was far worse than anything smu ever did.
Than i could...
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/04/opinion/penn-state-lessons-not-learned...
Not sure why op is rooting for psu to weather the storm here. I am hoping they, and we, can learn from their mistakes. We aren't it seems and the possibility this happens again seem more likely than not.
Not necessarily "rooting". There's no denying it's good for their program. As far as "learning from mistakes", I am hopeful that the precedent has been set for universities so that nothing like this will happen again in the manner that this took place.
PSU didn't get a slap on the wrist (though if anyone was rooting for the death penalty, then anything would seem minor in comparison). Furthermore, I find the lawsuit to be disappointing, but the university has made it clear that it is not affiliated with it in any way, so I would say that it's fair to assume they university learned their lesson.
Bad idea. We need a decent PSU to give some semblance of balance to the Urban Meyer Division. Otherwise it's just that much easier of a cakewalk for Ohio.
It's still going to be a cakewalk for OSU (assuming the divisions stay the same). PSU had a lucky season, but they've still got huge schollie sanctions; those are going to be the silent killer, and they're more than likely to be trash the next decade regardless of whether Bill O'Brien stayed or left
Yeah, they had a fantastic senior class this year. When the sanctions really hit and they have no depth across the board, the situation will not look nearly as good. Although he does seem like a good coach from early returns.
He could end up being Glen Mason. A good coach at a bad program (and with these sanctions, PSU is a bad program), who takes them to their ceiling, but gets canned for unreasonable expectations
If they reshuffle the divisions and are suddenly in ours in the "East."
I won't condemn your opinion...in fact, I understand it. I just think that the people who deserved to be punished are gone...give them a chance to breathe...In regard to BOB, if he stays long term, weathers out the storm, and returns them to what they were, he will be a god.
*EDIT not sure if he chose out of love, duty, respect for those who stayed, or the huge buyout, but glad he did
I think the sanctions were overly harsh, and agree that the criminals were gone, I don't like PSU fans. Both personal and what I saw online, there's no love lost for them in my book
"I just think that the people who deserved to be punished are gone"
If they didn't do a complete clean out of their entire athletic department (which I have not heard that they have done), I can't agree with this. You really don't think that the only people who knew about this are the ones who are gone (Paterno, Curley, Spanier, etc.), do you?
I think the punishment was more about punishing the culture at Penn State. They should have just killed the program for a year or 2
Maybe I missed something, but when was he leaving in the first place?
He has been in the conversations for a lot of open NFL head coach spots. Per ESPN, he was on the Browns and Eagles short list and had some interest from San Diego and Arizona
http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/8811109/cleveland-browns-interviewed-p...
Another lifer in the making, perhaps?
He should wait until the right opportunity arises. One more good (even decent) year at PSU and he will be able to pick his job, NFL or College. Might as well wait until their is a better job than the Cardinals with their QB situation or the Browns.
But will he get one more good year? Probably. He's a good coach and he should have some talent though not like this year's. We'll see.
...and for PSU as well. I thought he would have a hard time leaving those players who stuck with him and the program. I don't see BOB as a guy chasing the bigger dollar or following his ego. Good for PSU.
I'm glad he's staying, but had he left, my personal opinion of him would have hit rock bottom. He knew very well the situation he was getting himself into at Penn State. The program would have plummeted even further had he left, and it would have shown that he's nothing more than a gun-for-hire who's services go to the highest bidder.
They need stability, and they need a leader now more than ever. If O'Brien can lead PSU back from the brink, get them an eventual Big Ten title, maybe a Rose Bowl win, he will have accomplished more, in my opinion, than he ever could have in the NFL. Besides, I don't think he could bare having to look his players in the eye, after everything they've been through, and tell them that he's leaving them.
When he was hired, he was repeatedly assured the issue was a legal one and that any NCAA involvement would be minimal. That is why they changed his contract after the sanctions were handed down.
In a win now, win often business, you don't have long to improve. Those scholarship reductions mean that Penn State will be functioning essentially as an FCS school in FBS. Sure there talent will be better, but that will leave them with NO chance for recruiting mistakes. Just think about how many we endured under the latter years of Carr and Rodriguez and in the end, we had only two losing seasons.
I'd say he's in a Tommy Amaker type situation, but if he can win as much as Amaker over the next 3-4 years, he's a miracle worker. He'll be fired before his contract runs out.
Good, now he will get to know the feeling of getting beaten down by Michigan next season.
And I'm sure he'll get a call from his former QB he coached at the Patriots, Tom Brady.
I don't see the threat. Where did he get drafted? Ryan Leaf is where it's at. 1st round.
He's receiving a $1.3 million raise and some leverage.
StateCollege.com touches on some of the things he has already done.
It seems like O'Brien is not afraid to institute a clean break and rebuild the program in the image of someone not named "Joe" - upon being hired, he was instrumental in not retaining the marketing director (a long-time Paterno supporter), the director of operations, and several other staffers, as well as completely overhauling the strength and conditioning program and putting names on the Nittany Lions' uniforms.
In all honesty, the tangible changes - uniforms, programs, personnel, etc... - kickstart the cultural changes they so desperately need, and in that respect, I can't say that I blame O'Brien for testing the limits of where Penn State is willing to be led, if you will. It doesn't seem like they would deny O'Brien much, given the current state of affairs - the $1.3 million, after all, was a donation which will go towards his salary, as the PennLive article notes. If nothing else, Bill O'Brien is highly aware of his position in relation to where the Nittany Lions' football program stands.
His star is going to crater in two years. Those sanctions are going to hurt a lot, and soon. Everyone thought USC had it easy, but the scholarship restrictions really hurt them down the stretch this season. The same thing will happen at Penn State, but the front line talent won't be there. It will take a long time for them to recover from those sanctions.
I thought the same thing. My guess is he'll regret the decision to stay put (if true) sooner rather than later. Things change pretty fast in college football - just ask the now unemployed 2010 NCAA "Coach of the Year" Gene Chizik.
Because of the sanctions, O'Brien will get the benefit of the doubt until their scholarship level goes back up. If he plays the "us against the world" card well enough, he should be able to keep his job as long as he wants. Playing MD and Rutgers every year, which will probably happen however the divisions ultimately end up, will help, too.
O'Brien will have lower expectations and less scruitiny than most college coaches in comparable jobs. My guess is that he isn't going to command a $7 million contract in the NFL like Saban should. If the money is decent, and he has a good situation, he might as well stay.
Rutgers and Maryland will have their way with PSU, not sure you understand the scholarship situation PSU is about to confront.
Exactly. Think about USC's struggles with depth this year. That's a team that consistently gets one of the top 3 recruiting classes in the nation. Penn State generally recruits in the 30s and they'll have 10 fewer players on scholarship than USC.
Lot of scuttle-butt on PSU boards (and in articles in Harrisburg media) tonight that O'Brien was VERY unhappy with the PSU interim AD (Dave Joyner), and was using this as leverage to get him out of there ........ take that FWIW.
PSU absolutely had to keep O'Brien. Would have been risk of a total implosion if he left.
He sought out more information and possible opportunities, then realized perhaps that that wasn't the type of person he is after weighing the options?
he let it leak out that he was wiling to contest his buyout and was interested in other jobs to parlay an interview or two into $10M+. Les Miles must be envious.
I'd rather Penn State be a perennial top15 team and a contender in the Leaders division (I'm not confident that's correct) than OSU easily win that division every year. Unless these divisions are moot. Which is likely.
For him to do what he did this season wasn't as big a shock as it should have been given the seniors PSU had. His real challenge begins next fall. When the weight of the sanctions & not many seniors will be a glaring problem
It's a good thing he's staying because the PSU fanbase is so delusional I think a coaching search in this climate would break the internet.
I kid you not, I saw a title of a post on a PSU message board stating: "If BOB leaves, I would be fine with getting James Franklin from Vandy"
There are no words.
I feel cheated at not being able to experience this meltdown.
I'm kind of surprised he's staying, given that the state of PA is suing the NCAA over where the fine money is spent. That kind of thing could drag on forever and be a massive distraction.
