Four Things Worth Reading: The Return!

A regular trip through the college football blogosphere.

1. That list is how long? A list of Penn State malfeasance since 2002 has been kicking around message boards for the past few weeks and may have even spurred ESPN to sic Outside the Lines on the Nits. It has 61(!!!) separate incidents featuring Penn State players and the long arm of the law. Or, sometimes, the long arm of nothing in particular:

53. Joe Paterno - Road Rage - No Charges

As much as we all love the possibly apocryphal JoePa road rage incident, it resulted in no charges and, uh, did not involve a Penn State player.

Many of the other incidents are arrests that resulted in acquittals or college kids getting busted for holding a half-full Natty Lite, which is punishment in an of itself. The list is overstated. But how much?

Run Up The Score breaks it down for you. The general conclusion:

All in all, the Penn State Nittany Lions don't have a widespread, 1988 Miami Hurricanes style criminal gang disguised in plain football uniforms. They have a drinking and fighting problem. Players aren't shooting guns or selling drugs. They're getting loaded and brawling. While I take modest comfort in the fact that the football roster doesn't double as a suspect list from The Wire, there is still a rather obvious behavioral problem within the program.

This is probably because the man they should fear more than any other is kind of ancient and "works from home."2. Bruins Nation is well-known around the college football blogosphere for one thing: blinding hatred of Karl Dorrell. And ridiculous expectations. Bruins Nation is well known around the college football blogosophere for two things: blinding hatred of Karl Dorrell, ridiculous expectations, and... incredibly soft lambswool kid gloves that apply silky lotion to the backside of Rick Neuheisel?

It is apparently so. Sunday Morning Quarterback takes a dryly hilarious look at a certain... difference in outlook now that a coach not universally regarded as incompetent has taken over. It's not in the direction you might imagine.

3. I object, dear sirs. It's one thing when the mainstream media derides all bloggers as mother's-basement living illiterate troglodytes. That's such an old saw now that it communicates more about the lame-stereotype proprietor than actual blogs. But what's with Paul Finebaum exalting the Capstone Report, the most mouth-breathing Alabama blog on the planet, one that accused the 'Bama players of being "without pride" and said they "didn't even want to know how to be champions" after last year's Louisiana-Monroe loss?

Finebaum is a cynical, joyless person who manufactures outrage for money, but exposing the Capstone Report to a wider audience only makes blogs look like sports talk radio, and that's too far. Auburn blog The Joe Cribbs Car Wash says this aggression will not stand, man, and fisks righteously.

Zinger incoming!


Pow.

4. Don't mess with Gary Barta, Iowa Athletic Director, if you want to keep all your organs. (Language warning.)