OT - Penn State vs our other rivals
Just wanted to get some other peoples opinions on this topic. For a while now I've resented PSU as a university in general. It's not even about what happened - which was obviously unspeakable - it's about how they handled it. By continuing to make Joepa into a diety even after it was clear that he knew SOMETHING. This previous week when the wins were restored and the hockey and basketball teams wore "409" on their helmets and warm up shirts... that just pushed me over the edge. I will always hate MSU and OSU because those rivalries are time-honored and full of history. But, for me at least, I find myself rooting even harder for someone ANYONE to beat Penn State. The way that their fanbase has handled themselves over the past couple of years has put them on a higher level of hatred for me even beyond our traditional rivals. They did something institutionally wrong and are celebrating it less than five years later. Feel free to disagree I'm just curious about how other people view them.
January 20th, 2015 at 1:14 PM ^
rabble
January 20th, 2015 at 1:16 PM ^
January 20th, 2015 at 2:35 PM ^
January 20th, 2015 at 4:55 PM ^
You didn't really win all those games. Ohio State should have a losing record to them. The B1G hates Penn Sate and has always hated them and therefore all the calls and non-calls go against them. The B1G loves just OSU and Michigan and gets all the calls. While that sentiment is not true of all their fans, a fair number of them feel that way.
And don't try to explain a call was in the first quarter or first half and they had the rest of the game to recover. They just go back to another call they didn't like in anohter year. I'm sure they have had bad calls and I wouldn't be surpirsed if some crews were perhaps a little stricter on them than nomral but to belive Delany picks up the phone and says, "Boys, don't foget, we want PSU to lose this week because they are playing Ohio State (or Michigan) just reinforces how delusional they sometimes are.
And yes, I did think the INT should have been overturned and we should have been moved 5 yards back on the one field goal. But I still think it was a crappy crew and not a conspiracy that caused those missed calls.
January 20th, 2015 at 1:18 PM ^
Honestly, for years I had no real feelings toward Penn St. It helped that Michigan owned them for most of my youth. The developments in recent years were horrible beyond description. The fact that the fan base seems to think that systematic abuse of children is overblown is where it really baffles me.
To me, if there is any indication that anybody involved with the program had a hunch that anything of that nature was going on is enough to nuke the program. The fact that they fought back at all just left a bad taste to me.
January 20th, 2015 at 1:51 PM ^
You have to understand how Penn State regards itself collectively. The best analogue I can make is that Penn State fans are like Notre Dame fans. They possess an inflated view of their importance in the college football landscape. Now with Notre Dame, this self-image is at least justified as the Irish have a solid history of college football behind them. Championships, legendary rivalries. etc. Penn State doesn't really have any of that.
Before they joined the Big 10, Penn State fans relished in their independent status and regarded conference affliliation as something vulgar. There was a large faction of them that opposed joining the Big 10, but they figured once they joined, they'd be the preeminent program of the conference.
The fact that they aren't celebrated in the same was as Michigan or Ohio State in the conference hierarchy shreds their worldview and it makes them crazy. That's why they hate us.
January 20th, 2015 at 1:19 PM ^
one, see the Paterno angle of the Penn State scandal as having a lot more grey in it than most people outside of the Penn State community will acknowledge. I don't think that JoePa is a demonic individual who is rotting in hell right now because he was hell bent on ruining lives to protect his legacy. I don't think that view of him is supported by the established facts of the case and I think that Penn State fans view things through the prism of wanting to believe the best interpretation of the actions of Paterno, who was a very big part of the identity of their university.
I don't think any less of Penn State fans, players, or teams, due to what transpired at Penn State. I don't equate current Penn State with the Sandusky scandal.
January 20th, 2015 at 2:21 PM ^
Considering in his own testimony before a grand jury paterno said that he was told about Sandusky abusing a child in the shower I'm not sure what the grey area is. In 1998 Sandusky fucking admitted to showering with a young boy after his mother complained to the university and his punishment was he was told to not shower with boys again. Paternon let him keep the charities offices in the same building with access to the football facilities and program after the fucker admitted that and that should be enough to taint his legacy. And then it is reported again that Sandusky is showering with boys in 2000 and 2001 and he was still allowed the facilities and program until 2010. I don't care if he technically did what he had to do under the law the man did the bare minimum possible and remained friends with and allowed a man who he had been told had abused three different children on three different occasions access to his football program and the facilities where he abused more children. If Paterno had acted as he should have he may have prevent the abuse of multiple children even if not the prosecution of Sandusky.
If you don't think that is enough to taint a mans legacy and think it means he deserves to be in hell I don't know what to tell you. When your inaction allowed a child predator to continue working some of the blame belongs to you. I wouldn't judge current psu by the scandal if current psu acknowledged what their football program and insitution and joepa did. I wouldn't judge them if they didn't petition to have his statue put back up or wear 409 shirts. I wouldn't judge them if the woman sitting next to me hadn't cried she was so happy when they played sweet caroline during their game against us in 2013. I wouldn't judge them if they hadn't hired Florida State's president partly because of how "well" he handled the Winston allegations or hired Franklin even as there was an open investigation into whethre he had helped cover up rape by some of his players. But they did all of those things, that fanbase is now my most disliked in sports and I will never root for them against anyone.
January 20th, 2015 at 1:20 PM ^
I despise the school totally. With MSU, ND and OSU it is a rivalry against the team and fans. With Penn St the administration is clearly rotten and punishments should have gone beyond the football program.
January 20th, 2015 at 1:20 PM ^
To me Penn State is the third most annoying fan base and university behind [the Spartans] and [the Buckeyes]. I despise them far more than our supposed rivals Notre Dame and Minnesota. I have genuine disdain for their fans and the things they hold holy, especially in light of how things have been handled in the last 4 years
January 20th, 2015 at 1:30 PM ^
After you get banned and create a new username, look me up. I want to subscribe to your newsletter.
January 20th, 2015 at 1:37 PM ^
Points reset, post edited to remove unclever references to rival fanbases. As a reminder to all, please try to refrain from "Spartina", "Sharty", "F***eye", "O$U", "Pedo. St." or other such references that really paint this place in a bleaker light than we would like. Someone offline brought up "Izziot", which I did see in a thread this morning - I know people don't like the guy, but come on. We're better than that, folks, and once in a while, we like to attempt to acquire nice things.
January 20th, 2015 at 1:43 PM ^
Thanks LSA for helping keep this place clean.
January 20th, 2015 at 2:16 PM ^
New to me
January 20th, 2015 at 2:32 PM ^
There's a trophy! That means they are rivals!
January 20th, 2015 at 1:25 PM ^
January 20th, 2015 at 2:19 PM ^
Ratings of big ten academics : #1 Northwestern,#2 us, #3 Wiscy. All the rest somewhere down the line to Nebraska at last place ( MSU next to last )
January 20th, 2015 at 2:59 PM ^
January 20th, 2015 at 1:27 PM ^
A few of them in excruciating fashion for the PSU faithful. That was good.
The loudest PSU fans have been horrible in the wake of the Sandusky scandal. There are plenty of nice PSU fans and I feel for them. But they are drowned out by the nutcases.
I think they're in for a tough few years. They'll be lucky to finish third in the B1G East anytime soon. Franklin is okay but he's a puntasaur in a division with three aggressive game day coaches who will have better talent than he has.
January 20th, 2015 at 1:32 PM ^
I can see how Penn State fans can still cling to JoePa's innocence in the matter. In the BEST CASE scenario, JoePa did all that he was trained/told to do by the school administration and what the NCAA mandated in their rule books. Plus, Paterno did report the incident to Gary Schultz who was the administrative head of campus police at the time, so in JoePa's mind he could have thought that he did go to the police already.
Many Penn State fans seem to think that JoePa was actively lied to and told that an investigation into the matter was conducted and when in reality it was a huge cover-up by the administration.
Whether or not I believe that to be the case, I don't know. Probably not, but I have to admit it is plausible and for a diehard JoePa/PSU fan it is probably the most reasonable scenario.
Disclaimer: I've only done a very brief research into the incident (i.e. glancing over the Freeh report), and don't know all the facts. But having befriend a few PSU in the past few years, this seems to be their reasoning on defending JoePa. They wholeheartedly agree that Sandusky, Spanier, Schultz, and co were disgusting human beings, but they do think that JoePa got way to much of the blame compared to his actual involvement.
January 20th, 2015 at 2:49 PM ^
This makes little sense. By Jay Paterno's own admission, JoePa was told in his own living room that there was a witness to an (notice the quotes) "extermely sexual" incident in the showers. That's in print authored by Jay himself.
So JoePa knew.
Even if only once.
Once is all it should have took.
And Mike McQueary should have beat the shit out of Sandusky and rescued that poor kid instead of crawling away!
January 20th, 2015 at 1:38 PM ^
Penn State fans may quite possibly be the most delusional in all of college football. They are Notre Dame fans without the benefit of legitimate prestige. Penn State under Joe Pa made it's reputation as an independent by loading up on a litany of east coast cupcakes like Rutgers, Temple, Maryland, and Syracuse. The only football program that provided any semblance of a challenge to them over their history before they joined the Big 10 was Pitt.
Still, they regard themselves prestige-wise as being on par with Notre Dame and a huge faction of their fanbase regard their affiliation with the Big 10 as this vulgar betrayal of their history and ideals. They never make the correlation between the fall of the program with their participation in a conference football schedule, which is glaringly obvious to the rest of us.
In terms of a fanbase who's collective self-image is completely out of whack with reality, you'd be hard-pressed to find one more askew than Penn State.
January 20th, 2015 at 1:44 PM ^
I still regard their inclusion in the conference as stupid, so have at it fellas, go join the American, Conference USA or whatever.
January 20th, 2015 at 1:48 PM ^
At this point I truly feel that PSU should be kicked out of the B1G. That University is a disgrace.
January 20th, 2015 at 1:44 PM ^
January 20th, 2015 at 1:48 PM ^
Penn St doesn't even sniff our rival list. OSU & MSU. Notre Dame is a close third. Outside of the obvious Minnesota being decent and Northwestern bigger rivals than Penn St.
January 20th, 2015 at 1:50 PM ^
I think a big part of this that is usually not mentioned enough is: The culture JoPa came from -- with Pittsburgh on the west edge, over to State College, south into West Virginia. This is "central" PA basically.
Central PA culture really hasn't changed since the 1950's, at least for people in their 40's or older. It's mostly Germanic and East European; very, very little influx of non-caucasians even today. Many older people in that party of the country have lived their WHOLE LIVES in the same towns, even same houses. Kids leave; then often come back. Rarely is there an influx of new communities or cultures.
So what you have is the Old Rules still in play, for pretty much anyone over 40 years old. Things are UNSPEAKABLE in that culture. Some's drug habit; some's cheating rampantly on his/her spouse; someone is gay. You just don't speak of it with other people, if the subject is in any way broached you roll your eyes or make a face and look away. The concept of an "intervention" is, like, so utterly foreign. So someone likes young boys? You avoid that person, but you don't speak of it.
JoPa absolutely came from that culture. If he's told of someone doing UNSPEAKABLE things, well, YOU DONT SPEAK OF THEM. Tell a boss, then ever raise it again, ever, and certainly not to the person with the problem, period. Act like you never heard about it. The thought of UNSPEAKABLE things was probably unable to sustain itself in his brain, it was probably so bizarre to him that he didn't even entertain thoughts about it, beyond a nanosecond.
I've seen this first hand, many times. I'm not sure it's still rooted with the younger (under-30) crowd there, which is all Instragram and what not with the rest of the world. But wow, it's a powerful antedote to anyone who dares try to mention something UNSPEAKABLE in an crowd of middle-aged people or older.
January 20th, 2015 at 2:02 PM ^
This is why Paterno did as little as he could possibly do given the situation.
January 20th, 2015 at 3:43 PM ^
Now I, without a doubt, enjoyed my 4 years at PSU. But I was also damn ready to get out of there at the end of those 4 years. It wasn't the long-term place for me.
EVERYONE in Central PA --- be they alum or non-alum identifies with Penn State. It is THE ONLY thing that puts that part of America on the map.
As an anecdote: the housekeepers/food service workers/custodians that I interacted with when I was at PSU invariably lived in towns like Tyrone or Snow Shoe or Lock Haven or Huntingdon. Wherever it was, it was invariably 30-70 miles away; they worked at PSU because that was the only regional place to get a job. Working at PSU was a "path" for their kids to hopefully somegday get discounted tuition and a chance at something better. Hell of a lot better than working in the mines or such.
But the other side of that coin: Central PA is also isolated & (for lack of a better work) inbred. It's simply not a place that reacts well to change & upheavel.
That is at least part of the reason why I think many PSU fans have a hard time accepting even a "nuanced" view of Paterno, much less a view of "Paterno was a really really really bad guy." They just can't handle the (literal) 9.0 earthquake which hit their world in November 2011. They can't handle the aftershocks that continue still today.
I'm not making excuses for anyone here, but that is a bit of reality. Based on your post, I know you get that.
FWIW, I think (in general) PSU alums are "more accepting of the real JoePa" than PSU fans who aren't alums. I also think younger PSU fans/alums are "more accepting" vs. the older PSU fans/alums. No quantitative evidence to back that up, just my anecdotal experience.
January 20th, 2015 at 9:53 PM ^
Your narrative jives with everything I experienced growing up in Pennsylvania and interacting with relatives over the past 40 years.
January 20th, 2015 at 1:50 PM ^
I don't think of PSU as a rival, but I do hate the team and fanbase. The whole, "You are punishing people who had nothing to do with it!" excuse is bull to me. Every player at PSU knowingly chose to go there or remain there, knowing the sanctions in place. Frankly, I think they should have gotten the death penalty, and would love to see them lose every game for the rest of time.
January 20th, 2015 at 1:51 PM ^
January 20th, 2015 at 1:52 PM ^
I still hate Ohio and MSU more and believe they would still back Izzo or Meyer if the same thing happened there as at Penn State. All 3 fanbases are cut from the same cloth of drunkards who could never get into Michigan but at least PSU hates other people more than Michigan. Read any BTN article about Michigan and you'll see 70 straight comments of lol scUM sucks from MSU/Ohio people.
January 20th, 2015 at 2:28 PM ^
I'm not sure what makes you think OSU would protect Meyer; we fired Woody for much less, and he was more of an icon than Urban will ever be.
The difference between OSU fans and Penn State fans is that the vast majority of OSU's assholes are Biglots Buckeyes who only root for OSU because there's no NFL team in central Ohio. The alumni are embarrassed by them and they have no say in how the university operates. Penn State's assholes are the alumni.
January 20th, 2015 at 3:03 PM ^
Damnit, have an upvote for use of the term 'BigLots Buckeye' This pains me to say as someone who would root for Voldemort if he played against Ohio State, but yes... by and large OSU alumni fans are alright.
January 20th, 2015 at 3:11 PM ^
It's always seemed to me like a recent (90's on or so) phenomenon of OSU being the "bandwagon" team in the Midwest. I have friends from Illinois, Indiana and (gasp) Michigan that are all OSU fans with no real tie to OSU, other than one of them lived in Ohio for a couple years as a kid. Generally those I have found to be the obnoxious OSU fans, vs. the ones who attended OSU.
January 20th, 2015 at 3:07 PM ^
You guys brought back Tressel for halftime immediately after he had just had his own scandal.
January 20th, 2015 at 3:12 PM ^
Nice equivalence of the two scandals.
And that is little different than some Michigan fans would like to do with the Fab Five, if we're being honest here.
January 20th, 2015 at 3:21 PM ^
Bringing the Fab Five back two decades later, after any sanctions are over, is the same as bringing Tressel back a couple years later, while he's still barred from coaching, and they are still dealing with lost scholarships?
January 20th, 2015 at 1:58 PM ^
*The media drooling over them when they joined the Big Ten and saying they were going to dominate the conference every year.
*JoePa getting to choose which conference opponents (at first) he could have bye weeks before... He said, "I want my bye weeks before Michigan and Ohio State" ...which the B1G agreed to and he got that luxury for 4 consecutive seasons.
*The 9 game winning streak had an automatic conspiracy excuse for every loss by their fans that even Spartan fans would laugh at.
Yeah, that's petty stuff to get angry about but I'm like that when it comes to opponents. But this whole Sandusky drama and the way they reacted to it three years ago, the NCAA basically saying, "never mind," to their punishments and their continued excuse making for JoePa who was supposed to be this man of honor...fuck those guys.
Any time I watch Penn State now, I root hardcore for them to lose just like MSU, OSU and ND. I was pissed when Boston College missed that extra point in the Toilet Bowl game to basically give them the win.
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January 20th, 2015 at 2:49 PM ^
I always felt that Penn State was more of a Big East team than a Big 10 team...I think that the Big East would probably still be viable if Penn State had joined...and one helluva football league in addition to being one hell of a basketball league.
January 20th, 2015 at 2:02 PM ^
January 20th, 2015 at 4:37 PM ^
Paterno was always a little dirty and never really punished players. The saint joe crap was all media and the fact that nobody ever turned the players in because of the cult atmosphere. Granted that is like most big time college football programs, the sandusky situation is what takes it to another level and took from over loved annoying coach to legitimately bad person.
January 20th, 2015 at 2:12 PM ^
Paterno was Canham's first choice to replace Bump in '69.
January 20th, 2015 at 2:57 PM ^
We definitely dodged a bullet when Canham hired Bo on December 27, 1968. Bo was and continues to be some I draw inspiration from.
January 20th, 2015 at 3:22 PM ^
And keep thousands of young Michigan boys safe ?
January 20th, 2015 at 4:35 PM ^
because he didn't want to leave his team before the Orange Bowl against Kansas.
Shortly thereafter, Canham asked Paterno about Bo. Paterno said that he didn't know him, but passed along a glowing recomendation from Woody.
Canham sent Paterno a thank you note every year thereafter.
January 20th, 2015 at 2:13 PM ^
Restoring wins sends the wrong message. The NCAA places a higher priority on graft than it does on the protection of children? How is this possible? Sandusky's sick criminal behaviour was enabled by key actors in the institution (JoPa included) - and this depravity was known in western PA and coaching circles years before the story broke nationally. Shame on the NCAA and shame on PSU for continuing to not take this seriously.
January 20th, 2015 at 2:41 PM ^
Agreed, Penn State fans are delusional.
They still whine about Avant's toe-heel catch in the 2005 Michigan-Penn State game (Big Ten conspiracy, et al.), but conveniently ignore the fact that Holmes' heels came down out of bounds on his touchdown catch in Super Bowl XLIII, clinching the championship for their beloved Steelers.
