Reader Dan points the way to a startling occurrence: Joe Paterno, after years of closed practices, has opened up practices to the prying eyes of the media, and has gone so far as allowing video streams of exactly what’s going on inside Penn State’s practices. It’s not quite “Kim Jong-Il: Cribs” level access, but for spring football it’s damn close.

What’s going on, you ask?

–Joe Paterno scaring the crap out of a linemen by rushing at him and into a blocking pad in an effort to show him proper pad level and attack angle. (Mind, read: “Please, please don’t let him die right here.“)

–JoePa screaming at a lineman to “PULL YA SHIRT DOWN”

–Further installation and use of the zone read in the Penn State offense, a look that proved quite effective for Michael Robinson two years ago and was as effective in the Anthony Morelli era as bowling with cinder blocks.

Freedom! JoePa jumps in.

Joe Paterno, ah, that funny old guy! Just joshing on about how he could coach another 10 years, ho-ho! What drollity!

“I don’t even care if I get a contract. I’ll be very frank with you,” the 81-year-old Paterno said Saturday in his first meeting with reporters in three months. “I think the university will do what they think is right, whenever the time comes. Right now, I’m very comfortable.”

“What do I need an extension for?” he asked before joking that he could coach “just another 10 years.”

Blind peasant, you don’t even see what’s coming your way, do you? Paterno will survive to see the singularity on his Mediterranean diet, lack of exposure to radiation from portable electronic devices, and healthy insistence on not using horseless carriages to get everywhere. Then, just as Ray Kurzweil predicts will happen, he’ll have all of his organs replaced and coach Penn State football for hundred of years barring severe catastrophic bodily injury or murder.

That Little Rascal: Paterno to coach until molten lead rains from the sky.

Somewhere in that house are bags and bags of blue and white Nittany vitamins. We’d bet our head in a jar on it.

Spatial mathematics. Topology. At its most abstract, football is math, and particularly wirebrained coordinators understand this. Gutty Little Bruins points us toward this old but still indisuptably essential slice of Norm Chow’s playbook squeezed into a basic article on his system, and again: the inside of Chow’s brain must be a tidy, well decorated room of baroque simplicity and variation in the decorating. This play alone gets the Chessmaster treatment:

It’s called 69 Weak, and Norm Chow has already scored three touchdowns on you with it. The space-brain calculations Chow’s capable of making deplete our word bank when we reach for awestruck adjectives, so just read the damn thing and be duly impressed. If the schemes leave you cold, then at least marvel at the simple genius of Chow’s philosophy.

For our basic passing game we have a strongside vertical, and we have a middle vertical, and a weakside vertical. We have a couple of horizontal stretches and we have a couple of man routes. We have a few one-man routes. We have a route to attack Cover 2, and we have the four verticals game. That is our basic passing game. There I have told you everything we do and I did it in two minutes. Again…we have one strongside vertical route, one middle vertical route, one middle vertical and one weakside vertical. We have two horizontal stretch routes, a man route, four verticals and a Cover 2 beater. That is all we basically do. We attack everyone we play with these basic plays. Our kids know these plays the second day of practice.

It’s just that simple. Now go score forty a game just like Uncle Norm does, and you too can be the premiere signal-caller of your generation. Dear Jebus, thank you for bringing him back.

Texas A&M has apologized for the remarks of an A&M cheerleader that Joe Paterno “needs a casket,” which of course got people all hopped up on rageahol and demanding apologies and kowtows and all of the thing courtesy junkies demand when someone has pissed them off, regardless of what the subject of the remarks. (Our editorial stance is that those people need to get fucked in the ear by a water buffalo. )

The subject himself–Paterno–seemed less than worried about the comments:

“I think everybody has to take things with a grain of salt,” Paterno said. “Some young guy went up there, trying to be funny. Maybe he’s accurate, I don’t know.”

Again, it makes you want to hug Joe Pa. You’d probably smell like good old man afterwards, all aftershave and hair pomade. Not that bad baby food and adult diaper old man smell, either. JoePa’s got his shit together, so to speak.

Guest editor Hannibal Montegna with the weekend in televised mayhem:

Southerns think the world revolves around SEC football every day of the week, and for once, they’re right. Saturday serves up three must-see SEC games that easily dominate their respective time slots: Tennessee-Alabama early, Florida-Kentucky in the afternoon, Auburn-LSU into the night. This is, literally, your long-awaited chance to spend twelve consecutive hours with half of the Southeastern Conference. Just remember: even if you make it through this most gruelling tour of the league, you’ll still be a full two teams behind Jenn Sterger’s half-day record.

Six teams from the same conference in one day? I signed up for a challenge!

TGIF, UNLESS YOU HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO THAN WATCH…

LOUISVILLE at UCONN (8:00 • ESPN)
After losing 17-16 to Virginia last week, the Huskies are one point from a winning record. Louisville is only about sixblown assignments in the secondary away from 6-1. Watch For: Brian Brohm – for all the defensive woes, with his back against the wall at every turn all season, is still the best passer in the country.

SATURDAY – EARLY AFTERNOON: THERE IS A NEW RADIOHEAD ALBUM. FOR FUCKING FREE. DOWNLOAD THAT SHIT BEFORE…

Main Course (SEC Only): TENNESSEE at ALABAMA (12:30 • Lincoln Financial)
CBS apologizes, nation, but golf or kids’ shows or local infomercials or whatever it’s showing at noon Saturday (whatever it is, you won’t find it on the network’s primetime only schedule) is worth more to it than shuttling a pair of announcers down to Tuscaloosa for one of the best secondary rivalries in the SEC (that is, between teams with other primary rivalries, not between their respective defensive backfields. Not that that a slap fight between Simeon Castille and Jonathan Hefney wouldn’t be more interesting than Mr. Popiel or the ubiquitous Orange Clean guy). The immortal Daves get to flub their way through a non-snoozer for a change, their homespun, aggressively lo-def incompetence again enthralling a region; for the rest of the country, the joys of the SEC – that is, endless redneck jokes depressingly reinforced by crowd shots – are reserved for Gameplan subscribers only. Watch For: Spills! Chills! Impending medical bills! From the man who brought you Gainesville ‘05, Baton Rouge ‘05 and Gainesville ‘07: The Reckoning, it’s Erik Ainge on the road!

On the Other Channel…
PENN STATE at INDIANA (Noon • ESPN)
Indiana’s only national appearance will bring out the weepy angles for fallen coach Terry Hoeppner, only amped up by the 5-2 Hoosiers’ emotional quest for a bowl game and the sobering contrast of Zombie Joe across the way, who will never die. Watch For: Indiana quarterback Kellen Lewis, a lankier, more accurate version of Juice Williams: he leads the Hoosiers in rushing while also sporting a 30:13 career TD:INT ratio, even if defenses of Penn State’s caliber have tended to leave him curled up in a defensive ball.

Kellen Lewis: vows to defend precious young brains of Indiana students against rampaging JoPa at all costs.

IOWA at PURDUE (Noon • ESPN2)
Two weeks ago, these two teams’ stocks were rocketing in opposite directions, with the Hawkeyes getting waxed at home by Indiana and Purdue enduring the second half onslaught of Notre Dame’s lone competent offensive outburst of the season. I think that sentence speaks for itself. Watch For: Defenders in the trail position for three straight hours. Iowa looked terrific against Illinois’ option game, which presented little downfield passing threat and failed in the fine zook tradition to line up properly on the one instance it connected on the long ball, but Curtis Painter and Co. offer no such luxuries. On the other side, Purdue’s defense is Purdue’s defense. Also: Pam Ward, natch.

(Aside on Ward. I just want to note that this article from the Washington Post in March praises her dutiful trailblazing in the booth, then includes this line:

One of Ward’s biggest fans is Mike Patrick…

This explains so, so much.)

OKLAHOMA at IOWA STATE (12:30 • FSN)
OU transitions from Texas and Missouri to…Iowa State, which provided fodder for Texas’ second half comeback narrative in a 56-3 smashing in Ames last week. Only five more years to go until ISU celebrates a solid century since its last conference championship, a tie for the 1912 Missouri Valley title. As a grandson of a now-deceased alum who wasn’t even born then, I’ve already RSVP’d: washing my hair that night… Watch For: The best team in the Big 12 against the worst. What could be more exciting?

Provincialism:Texas at Baylor (12:30, Versus), Army at Georgia Tech (Noon, Lincoln Financial), North Dakota State at Minnesota (Noon, Big Ten Network), Northern Illinois at Wisconsin (Noon, Big Ten Network), Central Michigan at Clemson (Noon, ESPNU), Miami, Ohio at Temple (Noon, ESPN Regional/Sports NewYork), Cincinnati at Pittsburgh (Noon, Altitude Sports and Entertainment), Wake Forest at Navy (1:00, CSTV), Grambling at Jackson State (1:00, ESPN Classic)

LATE AFTERNOON - BUSHY. WET. NOT AS FUN AS IT SOUNDS.

Main Course: FLORIDA at KENTUCKY (3:30 • CBS)
Kentucky shouldn’t have to prove anything at this point, really, and even though it probably does for the stubborn minds who still think “Scoreboard: TILT” when they see the Wildcats, this is the worst time for it to do the provin’. Auburn, Florida and LSU can all attest this season: you don’t want a tough game in this league the week after playing in a tight, physical battle of wills. Especially when, like the Wildcats last week and UF Saturday, the opponent’s had extra days to rest/prepare. Watch For: Tebow vs. Woodson: thoroughbreds in the Bluegrass State. Get it? Seriously, Tebow took Show behind Street Sense in May. He would have won, but he was late out of the gates for anointing a wayward mare with oil after he converted her and delivered her healthy filly after a torturous labor. Little Off Tackle Left is gonna be a champion some day…

On the Other Channel…
MIAMI at FLORIDA STATE / MICHIGAN STATE at OHIO STATE / CALIFORNIA at UCLA / TEXAS TECH at MISSOURI (3:30 • ABC/ESPN2)
ABC’s regional option will send most of the country to Michigan State at Ohio State:

Gaze upon your fate.

…and thus will also bear witness to the flashing neon upset bid of the day, brought to you by Allstate and AFLAC, who remind viewers to ignore the other one. Watch For: Javon Ringer, DeSean Jackson, everything about Texas Tech (especially the outrageous line splits) and…and…for the first time in my life, I can’t think of a reason to watch FSU and Miami. The East Coast always gets screwed with the ACC matchup.

SOUTHERN CAL at NOTRE DAME (3:30 • NBC)
By all rights, USC should win this game by at least nine touchdowns on its worst day, in the rainiest, most unkempt field conditions, with any of its blue chip golden children playing quarterback. The fact that I don’t have any confidence in the Trojans to win this by more than, say, 17 points is an indictment to just how lackluster they’ve been. Watch For: Grass so tall, bushy and wet, USC’s entire team will wonder how Paris Hilton ever managed to get inside a Catholic facility. Also: I’m so legitimately down on SC, it feels like it’s time for one of those “Magical Afternoons” every bad team gets against a good one. That’s not a “winning afternoon,” mind you, but it is probably an interesting one. For a while, anyway.

Provincialism: Wyoming at Air Force (2:00, Mtn), Mississippi State at West Virginia (3:30, Sports New York/ESPN Regional), Georgia Southern at Appalachian State (4:00, Mid-Atlantic Sports Network), Buffalo at Syracuse (3:30, ESPNU), NC State at East Carolina (4:30, CSTV), Stephen F. Austin at Texas State (4:30, FSN Southwest)

The Wild Card. KANSAS at COLORADO (5:45 • ESPN)
South Florida’s demise from the realm of the unbeaten leaves Kansas as the only true ‘Cinderella’ in the field, but that’s only because five of its six wins have come courtesy of Central Michigan, Southeast Louisian, Toledo, Florida International and Baylor. Colorado beat Oklahoma. This is DIVISION I FOOTBALL, BROTHER! We don’t play Baylor! Actually, Colorado does play Baylor – CU won last week in Waco, 43-23 – but you know what I’m saying: when it comes to Kansas, Mark Mangino is fat. Watch For: The off chance, however infinitismal, that Dan Hawkins challenges Mangino to join him on or in training for his half marathon, or better yet, to race around Folsom Field in lieu of overtime. If soccer can scrap its entire game to launch penalty kicks to decide a winner, college football can send morbidly obese coaches on wind sprints. Makes as much sense as putting the ball on the fucking twenty-five.

HERE COMES THE NIGHT – NO REST FOR THE WEARY.

Miles lunges for the patented “grip ‘n gnaw.” He likes ear.

Main Course: AUBURN at LSU (9:00 • ESPN)
Just like Kentucky, LSU has to be completely spent coming in here, off two straight emotional, draining finishes in consecutive weeks, and just four weeks removed from playing South Carolina in another “Game of the Week” atmosphere – this is the fourth time in five weeks the national spotlight is on Les Miles’ Tigers. Tommy Tuberville has a fantastic record against teams ranked this high, but since winning big in Baton Rouge in 1999 against Gerry DiNardo’s last team, he was 0-2 in Tiger Stadium against Nick Saban’s teams and lost to Les Miles’ first squad in overtime in 2005. Only the latter required a team gynecologist to accompany the quarterback on the trip. Watch For: It’s Auburn-LSU, legislatively mandated in both states to end – with all due controversy, where applicable, pursuant to Amendment 7-3-e, aka the “Hodson Clause” – via the most over-the-top melodrama possible. This is usually one of the five or six best games of the season: the last three have been decided by a combined eight points.

Calling this game: Mike Patrick, who’s a big fan of Pam Ward. And Britney Spears, but mainly Pam Ward.

On the Other Channel…
MICHIGAN at ILLINOIS (8:00 • ABC)
Michigan thinks it’s back after thwacking Purdue in the Wolverines’ venerable Purdue-thwacking tradition, but we don’t really know until we see the allegedly rehabbed M defense get back in the water against the athletic, spread option scheme that’s plagued it for years and drove this season to the brink of oblivion in the first two weeks. And I don’t mean just sticking a couple toes in – that’s what Northwestern and Eastern Michigan were for. Juice Williams and Rashard Mendenhall are real. It’s time to break out the cannonball on that shit. Watch For: It’s one of your last chances to see super hobbit Mike Hart as a collegiate. Appreciate his unstoppable piston leg drive while you still can.

VIRGINIA at MARYLAND (8:00 • ESPN2)
Did you know these two teams are a combined 10-3 with wins over Rutgers and otherwise unbeaten UConn? And they’re 4-1 in the ACC after each hung on to beat Georgia Tech in the game’s dying seconds? And the offenses are ranked 108th and 90th in total yards? You didn’t? Would you like to trade lives? I saw it in a Judge Reinhold movie. Watch For: Both teams appear to be committed to a low-risk, ground-based, defense-and-field position sort of offenses, so, you know, there’s always a chance of cutaways to the cheerleaders.

Provincialism: San Jose State at Fresno State (2:00 PT, Cox Sports Northwest), Eastern Washington at BYU (3:30 MT, Mtn.), Stanford at Arizona (5:00 MT, FSN Arizona), Northern Iowa at Western Illinois (6:30 CT, FSN Midwest), Oregon at Washington (4:00 PT, FSN Northwest), Tulane at SMU(7:00 CT, FSN Southwest), New Mexico at San Diego State (5:30 PT, CSTV)

The internet’s a hell of a place: any schmo with a cellphone or a camera can turn into a paparazzo overnight. And that benefits no one more than scalawag bloggers such as ourselves. We’ll all supposedly hear more from JoePa tomorrow in a press conference addressing, among other issues, a fight that may have involved football players over the weekend and the accusations swirling around Austin Scott.

However, in the meantime, we’ll have to rely on the actual audio from the road rage incident allegedly involving Joe Paterno. We warn you: the language presented here is strong and profane, and not suitable for anyone’s ears.

Joe Paterno, road rageaholic? More in a bit, pending some serious, serious artwork and mocking up of mockery. But we sooo, sooo want this to be true.

Yesterday, two grad students (husband and wife)that I know were driving on campus and being followed closely by a white car. The white car passes them and then cuts them off and pins them against the curb. The driver gets out and starts screaming obscenities at the woman (who was driving), flipping both middle fingers and repeatedly saying “do you know who I am!”.

Farkage by Irishoutsider, again.

More in a bit. Cue that “This is How Life Should Be” song from those Progressive Insurance ads. Awesome is losing its meaning as a word when it happens this often.

Penn State, 2007.

The only thing Joe Paterno and Bobby Bowden have in common are spongy, swollen, semi-functional prostates and breath. Oh, and they’re both still breathing and coaching football, leading to historical comparisons of dubious value and even more dubious entertainment value. When interviewed together (they’re usually yoked together a few times a year) the two share zero chemistry: Bowden pals around gamely while Paterno stares into the corner, thinking about brains, a particularly stirring passage from Cicero he read the night before, and occasionally muttering something about how coaching at his age is better than the alternative (i.e., being dead.)

Yet if coming into the season you’d asked who had a better handle on their massive, allegedly disordered empires, the clear answer would have been Paterno: maturing cannoneer of a qb, promising burly defense, Penn State brand linebacker of ferocious talent and malicious intent in Dan Connor, and Big Ten in the midst of a veritable Time of Troubles. Compared to Bowden, whose team lost to Wake Forest, the Nittany Lions looked like stable currency on the rise.

However, this is 2007, and the burrito you bought is not filled with beans and rice, but worms and confetti–meaning you were wrong, wrong, wrong. (more…)

Remember that we are all part of a global village, citizen, and that disease knows no borders and needs no passport. Transitive Property Football Herpes affects us all, zombie or living, American or Australian, man or kangaroo.

This message brought to you by the EDSBS Center for Football Studies.

Vigilance and protection, citizen, are your friends always. Max protection, if necessary.

Wait…holy smoking popes. Mike Vick can be found running a Man v. Bear fighting operation in Port-au-Prince and it wouldn’t be bigger than Joe Paterno getting arrested for this. We mean…this is it. This is huge. This is the story that flips the enormous turtle the world rests on upside down, thus flipping the whole universe into disarray. Just…just hold yourself while you read this.

Say it ain’t so, Joe!

Joseph Paterno, of 1245 Palm Bay Rd., was charged with trafficking cocaine after Palm Bay police spotted something being tossed out of the passenger-side window of a car he was traveling in on Monday, reports show. Paterno is being held on a $50,000 bond at the Brevard County Jail in Sharpes, reports show.

First of all, JoePa’s been living a lie. He’s actually 23, thus disproving the zombie theory of his longevity and entering a new variable into the equation: the heartbreak of progeria. This means that there might have been several coaches named Joe Paterno, each cloned from the same proto-Joe who died from the disease somewhere around the year 1949…just as the original Joe was getting his first job coaching. (Manhattan Project connection? Hitler’s brain? They’re all involved, too, but we don’t have time for that here.)

Second, Joe’s facing a mandatory minimum of three years if found guilty, meaning Penn State must find a new coach as in like, now.

Wow. We’re just soaking it all in. This is…what. Joseph Paterno?

Some 23 year-old who’s not… So it’s not…and he’s not the coach of…

FAAAAAAAHCK! We mean: oopsie! Thank God we haven’t posted this yet. Whew! Would that be embarrassing! HA-ha. Wearing the shiny slacks of failure, now that’s what that would be!

(HT: Mike and Run Up The Score.)

We’ve broken into the thirties. Courage, starving college football fan. In just 39 days, we all feed on the gridiron dish of our choice. In one coach’s case, the meal of choice is clear.

The Penn State Apartment Brawl Thingy–earning Penn State a forty-plus pointer originally in the Fulmer Cup Standings–has dwindled now to a mere 20 or so points, depending on the variety of legal pleas dismissed or reduced as a normal part and parcel of the legal process.

The punishment for the players has shriveled like an exposed phallus on the tundra, as well. PREPARE TO BE TEMPORARILY KILLED BY DEATH, UNDERLINGS!!!

Two Penn State football players ordered to stand trial for their roles in an off-campus fight were expelled from school for part of the summer but will be allowed to take part in preseason practice.

Hit me again, Ike, and this time put some stank on it! No school, but you can still come to practice–that’s the punishment from Joe Paterno, who must be fully sailing into the calm waters of the Gulf of Aingivafuck in his 38992th year of life. He’s mellowed quite a bit, as the horsewhipped citizens of Bukhara, Transoxiana would testify, since Paterno was a particularly brutal mayor there in the 6th century.

In response, Urban Meyer described the punishment as “appropriate, but a bit harsh.” We suppose in both places now, the “This is Sparta” rules apply.

This…is…Sparta!!! Note the sign, and don’t worry about punishment.

P.S. We know that’s supposed to be a guy kicking someone there, but it still looks like one guy knocking another guy into a pit with the kind of cartoon penis you’d draw in fifth grade. (HT: Kenny.)