Around the 'Shoe

David Shaw from Stanford was rumored to be a NFL candidate. Stanford quickly renegotiated his contract with a substantial raise also. Les Miles has benefitted from it. Bob Stoops has as well. This is one of the tactics colleges use to keep their coach from going to either the NFL or another college team. I don't see what's wrong here if Penn State wants to pay the increase and O'Brien wants to take it. None of my business.

You can ban it, but I'll probably still call him BOB.

Say what you will about culture, morality, etc...

Fact is football makes too much money for the area, which goes beyond PSU. I would guess that PSU and PSU football makes up 2/3rd of the GDP of the region.

PSU needs football to be successful as much or more than most communities.

Columbus would survive without Ohio State football. The people who live there may not, but the city would.

Fact is many D1A universities have their priorities out of order when it comes to football.

I agree.
And I do understand what the OP is saying here but the reality is that when Mark Emmert cited how Penn State shouldn't think about going to the Rose Bowl but changing their culture, he could've easily had been talking about a multitude of other programs.

And that in large part was the problem I had/have with the NCAA's ruling on Penn State. Emmert was demanding that the new coaching staff, some of the new administrators and a roster that was far removed from the Sandusky scandal to change their football culture.
The reality is that this same football culture exists in Tuscaloosa, Norman, Gainesville, Knoxville, Madison, Lincoln, Corvalis, Lubbock and numerous other college towns.

Part of that football culture is big money--boosters amongst them. They will spend vast resources on stadium upgrades, iPads for the players and to bring in the best coaches to help win. They'll also pay big money whenever either the new coach reaches a major bowl, finishes with a successful season or to simply keep him put. That, as you suggest is indeed a part of the college football culture which again makes Emmert's comments completely asinine in this regard. It's a culture that values winning just as much if not moreso than billion dollar NFL franchises.

Well deserved......he is a hell of a lot better coach than the OVER RATED Jo Pa. Jo. Pa. was a
Great coach before he joined the B1G....not so much after that. Competition is everything.

Just like the (now) two law suits. An absolute sign of desperation!

JoePa did'nt even know how much his checks were. The guy obviously could'nt see.

I'm with you on this. Can't stand it when PSU fans call him Bob. Bob up and kiss me arse I say!

No. The lesson that some things are more important than football, like reporting rape. But just save our fb coach at all costs because that is still the most important thing at psu seems to still be the case. I think that's what they mean. Understand?

This is why OSU was ranked only #20 on Forbes list--part of their formula was taking into account the financial impact football has on the local community's economy and OSU football's contribution to Columbus's economy just isn't as significant as it is to State College's, Tuscaloosa's, Ann Arbor's, Austin's or most of the other schools that were ranked above them. The money's the same but the percentage is different, which means than State College, Tuscaloosa, Ann Arbor, and Austin would have a much harder time surviving without football than Columbus would. You're right--it would hurt but Columbus would survive.

And it's why, months ago, even before the NCAA levied its sanctions, I predicted PSU wouldn't get the death penalty--too many innocent people in Central Pennsylvania would suffer. They weren't about to kill an entire community's economy because a handful of idiots made bad decisions.

Like you said the other day, "we can go on and on about this forever." The culture issue is all over everywhere. However, just because it is, doesn't mean that Paterno, Spainer, Shutlz, and Curly couldn't have put a stop to these atrocities in 1998. One word, just one, from any of those four and Sandusky is in prison years ago and how many countless victims would have been spared? That is why your program got hammered. Because the leaders of your program turned a blind eye, and allowed a pedophile free reign at your facilities to do his craft. Paterno helped sweep it under the rug, at a bare minimum by ignoring it. I've always wondered why JoePa didn't retire at least 10 years ago. I think he stayed on to help keep this quiet. He was obviously holding something to basically tell board members to get out of his office in 2004 when they wanted him to retire. Hell, for that matter why didn't Mike McQuery stomp the living shit out of that old goat instead of running to daddy, thus allowing the "felons-4" to conspire to cover this mess up and keep it quiet? Speaking of "Howdy Doody," how could he send letters to recruits boasting about Penn State's clean as new snow reputation when he knew all of this? If the right thing had been done would you have been subject to bad press? Yes. Would Paterno have lost his job years ago? Maybe, but we'll never know. Had they just done the right thing, the NCAA mess doesn't happen at all. This is a new and most awful chapter in the history of NCAA violations. Could the NCAA have acted on other schools in the past but didn't? Yes! That doesn't mean they don't have the authority to act now. My understanding is that the reason the school president signed off on the sanctions is the the NCAA said that the Freeh report was far more extensive than any investigation the NCAA would have done. I also believe that the president wanted to try to put this to rest and begin to heal in the fastest way possible. Just because it doesn't involve recruiting, benefits, or grades doesn't mean it isn't an NCAA matter. Morality and ethics aside, the 4 biggest people in the program conspired to keep this issue quiet in order to keep the program in good public standing for over a decade. By doing this, it allowed the football program to continue to recruit and compete at a top level. Thus, a competitive advantage was gained. I do empathize with the players who were not involved in the matter. I do with EVERY school that gets into trouble. In most NCAA cases it's a rogue booster, player (s), coach, or assistant (s) who gets everyone else into trouble. If one screws the pooch, they all do. The players who did nothing wrong are in the same boat as your players (and the players back to 1998) are now. All it would have taken was one word to get that creep off the premises and behind bars.....but it never came! Why didn't it? I also empathize with the alums, boosters, students, fans, and the vendors and merchants of the local economy. It's not their fault either. It is fault of Jerry Sandusky and all of the individuals who chose the easy wrong over the hard right just to avoid bad publicity.

So, your argument to me saying that "we don't have a culture problem" is to bring up people who are no longer with the university? Talk about illogical.

There is no culture problem at Penn State. It's a BS statement from the NCAA to "justify" why they hammered PSU.