Penn State Latest

LOL like it matters to a football player.

 

As for UCF, George O'Leary will claim a statue on his resume either way.

 

Let's not get carried away. A PSU degree is a damn good degree.

 

My post was intended to mock folks who think PSU is the bestest school ever academically, and on par with schools like CAL. No one without ties to PSU thinks that.

And, Drip didn't disappoint.

But, more than that, it was intended to mock the folks who think PSU is the bestest academic school ever, but then can't imagine it without football.

 

Football doesn't make or break PSU YF. Plenty of alumni will vouch for that.

 

There are plenty of people on this very thread who seem to think it not only makes or breaks the university, it does the same for State College.

 

Maybe it's not a one-way street. Maybe without football Penn State doesn't become a major research institution, but now that it's become one football's no longer necessary to maintain that status.

 

Contrary to popular belief, Penn State was not built by Joe Paterno, but rather was transformed from a farm school to a major research university in large part due to the ambitions of its presidents from the '50s through to the '70s, and was helped by federal investments in public and land grant colleges and universities (The very same evil federal guvment that many central Pa nitbaggers now rail against). Anationally relevant football teams probably helped them increase applications, its overall impact is grossly overstated. These occurrences roughly coincided with Paterno's arrival, and the rubes who don't know the difference between correlation and causation were quick to conclude that a good football team is what grew the academic side of the school.

 

Starting kicker-punter Fera is headed to Texas.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/kicker-fera-latest-leave-penn-140344905--ncaaf.html

 

Athon and Phil Steele are going to have to reprint their previews.
I noticed yesterday that Silas Redd was on the cover of what I assume was the East Coast edition of Steele.

 

If you don't think that the emergence of a nationally prominent football team could be the catalyst in raising the academic/research profile of a university, then I would suggest, with all due respect, that you don't have much of a grasp on the way higher education works (or did work over the relevant time period). The emergence of a football power would likely have a direct affect on enrollment. And growth in enrollment leads (or led) to more prominence in resource-allocation at both the state and national level. Independent of enrollment effects, great football success raises the political profile of an institution of higher education. Is Joe Pa why Penn State's in the AAU? Of course not (Penn State's been in the AAU since the late 1950s). But it is not remotely out of line to say that the emergence of that football program's national prominence contributed substantially to the growth of that university as a major research power.

By the way (and this is not directed specifically at you BYM, since you're not the only one who's ever raised this issue), I move that the whole "correlation's not causation" business be kept off the board. As often as it's used here, it's really becoming a trite phrase.

 

And we have our first Big 10 transfer, offensive lineman Ryan Nowicki, a redshirt freshman, to illinois. Penn State now down to a maximum of 60 returners after the season.

Scholarship breakdown by position:

QB 3
RB 3
FB 1
WR 9
TE 6
OL 13
DT 6
DE 4
LB 5
CB 5
S 4
K 1