His family announced:

It is with great sadness that we announce that Joe Paterno passed away earlier today. His loss leaves a void in our lives that will never be filled. He died as he lived. He fought hard until the end, stayed positive, thought only of others and constantly reminded everyone of how blessed his life had been. His ambitions were far reaching, but he never believed he had to leave this Happy Valley to achieve them. He was a man devoted to his family, his university, his players and his community.

Beloved within the Penn State community, JoePa arrived on campus as assistant coach in 1950, taking over head coaching duties in 1966. He went on to become the winningest college football coach in history.

His tenure came to a disappointing end in November, 2011, when Penn State administration fired him in the fallout from child sex abuse charges against former Assistant Coach Jerry Sandusky. He gave his first post-retirement interview to the Washington Post last week,  stating “shock and sadness” about the Sandusky charges, along with a belief that he did the best he could do within University procedures.

Paterno was not charged with any crime, but was nonetheless held accountable for not reporting the allegations against Sandusky to the police.

I didn’t know exactly how to handle it and I was afraid to do something that might jeopardize what the university procedure was. So I backed away and turned it over to some other people, people I thought would have a little more expertise than I did. It didn’t work out that way.

Paterno was well known for calling PSU football coaching his “Grand Experiment” — a merging of athletics and schoolwork that resulted in “success with honor.”

He is survived by his wife, Suzanne, and five children, all graduates of Penn State.

Oh don’t tell me you haven’t noticed how awful it’s been, and not just the ‘lesser’ non-BCS bowls.

This season has been the poster child for a playoff system in college football, and if I wasn’t convinced before, I am now.

If there aren’t at least 6 Defensive Coordinators looking for new jobs I’ll be surprised.

No team should be at a bowl praying for a win to GET TO A .500 SEASON. The sponsors should be ashamed of themselves for letting it get to this. Athletic directors should be turning down bowl invitations. Honestly, I’d rather turn one down than have this kind of humiliation.

Why you ask? Let’s look at the facts:

•  7 of the teams have a losing record, with one at an even 6-6. That isn’t even counting the 24 teams that are one game over .500. That means that over 50% of the teams asked to be in bowl games had average seasons. When did bowl games start being about mediocrity?
• While 7 games (by my count, I could be wrong,) have been decided by 3 points or less, a whopping 11 games have had a point gap over over 10 points. (Wait for it. I’m getting to the Orange Bowl.)
• I love a high scoring game, to a point. 6 games have had a combined score of 75 points or above, with 2, YES 2 GAMES OF OVER 100 COMBINED POINTS.  Thus why there is going to be a glut of Defensive Coordinators on the market next week.
• Can we talk about Boise State? This is a team that has won it’s conference (or shared the top spot,) 10 of the last 12 years. Did you read that? In that time, they have only been in 2 BCS bowls. 2. They have a 8-4 record in bowl games in the last 12 years. Again, did you read that? 12 bowl games in 12 years. The BCS should be ashamed of themselves for overlooking this team again and again and again. Obviously a top tier team, and they get sent to the Las Vegas Bowl 2 years in a row? 2 years they have been asked to play teams like Utah and Arizona State.Not exactly the teams you think of when you think powerhouse football. Since 2008 Boise state has a 50-3 record.

Playoffs should look like the basketball Final Four brackets. Each of the major conferences would send their champions, with a spot or 2 built in for poll picks or independent teams, if necessary. It would be over in about 3-4 weeks, with a built in extra week before the title game. All of the existing sponsors would get a game to sponsor (or be coupled with another sponsor,) so the money and advertising would still be there and the schools that actually deserve the exposure would make the money for an actual winning season.

Now really? How hard is that? Because honestly, if this BS continues, there will be no more BCS for me.

As a Sun Devil alumnus, I’m less than pleased.

Arizona State reached out to Pitt and asked permission to interview Graham. Pitt denied the request. With good reason, seeing as Graham just finished his first season coaching the Panthers. And Graham wasn’t even Pitt’s initial first choice last offseason, but came in three weeks after Pitt had hired former Miami of Ohio coach Mike Haywood, who was then arrested on domestic violence charges and promptly fired by Pitt.

Since Pitt denied the request, Graham took matters into his own hands. He decided to resign and gave the terms of his contract with Pitt a big middle finger. This after he brought players into his office and personally told them he wasn’t going anywhere.

Wow. Some class act we got coming to Tempe, huh?

Not that there was much left to choose from. The Sun Devils were supposedly in talks with Houston coach Ken Sumlin, but he dropped out of the picture when then Texas A&M job became available. ASU was all ready to announce SMU head man June Jones as the next head coach, but then dropped it at the last minute, supposedly amid backlash from alumni and boosters. (Which, DUH! Why would you replace Dennis Erickson with another Dennis Erickson??)

The rest of the head coaching openings in the Pac-12 have seemed to have gone in the right direction – Rich Rodriguez to Arizona, Jim Mora to UCLA and Mike Leach to Washington State. And ASU went with Todd Graham. For some reason the “one of these things is not like the other” tune from Sesame Street is now in my head. Which one of those names just doesn’t belong?

Last year ASU unveiled a new logo and a new (stupid) tagline – Fear the Fork. Now I’m afraid with this hiring, it’s Fear the Wins. Fear Being Elite. Maybe it should be Embrace the Mediocrity.

I’m pretty sure Pittsburgh Tribune-Review columnist Dejan Kovacevic summed it up best with one tweet:

Such is life as a Sun Devil fan. SIGH.

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Kristabella will always bleed maroon and gold and hopes that Todd Graham proves her wrong.

“Sources” say yes. Meyer — an Ohio native who started out as a grad assistant coach for the Buckeyes in the 80s — says “Meh.” He likes watching his kids play sports. Meh. He has a job at ESPN. So coming out of retirement to take the Buckeye coaching job? Meh, maybe:

“I know it’s that time of year. I’ve not been offered any job, and I’ve certainly not accepted any job.”

OSU athletic director Gene Smith also said no deal.

But you know how it goes with sources. Sometimes “sources” know things, and sometimes “sources” hear voices — very, very wrong voices. So whether Meyer is the guy to step in for real after Jim Tressels unfortunate tattoo parlor escapades ended his Ohio State tenure? Who knows.

We’ll let you know when we do.

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While Millen wasn’t defending Paterno, he did express that he would like to see due process take its course, rather than letting Paterno’s fate be decided by the court of public opinion. Sorry, Matt. I believe that opportunity passed about ten years ago, before the lives of several little boys were ruined.

The people are not stupid, and often due process sucks ass. If anything, it’s the court of public opinion that sets the wheels in motion, as is the case here. It was the court of public opinion that was avoided at the outset of this sickening debacle, and it’s the court of public opinion that will demand justice where “due process” has miserably failed. Had the public been originally involved, we wouldn’t be here today.

It’s not hard to imagine why it was covered up. You destroy a man and cause serious damage to your program. The repercussions are vast and the real damage can’t be quantified until you address it. It’s a very difficult issue and… SO FUCKING WHAT?

If I walk into a bathroom and see a man molesting a little boy, I have just entered the Thunderdome.  This issue wouldn’t have been hidden, because the news of the bloody battle in the Penn State bathroom would have seen the far reaches of the universe.

Those who know Paterno and aren’t willing to yet condemn him are likely suffering from the same disease that Paterno was suffering from when he found out that his long-time friend and associate was doing something unimaginable. He, like everyone else, was likely shocked and didn’t want to believe that someone he thought he knew so well could be capable of such atrocities. Automatically, you want to give the benefit of the doubt, but sometimes, you can’t. And this seems exactly like that kind of issue to me.

If Paterno knew, then what else do you need to know? What else do you need to hear? Do you need Sandusky to be found guilty before you make your judgment?

Though Paterno is not being charged criminally, police describe his actions as a “moral lapse” for doing nothing more than reporting the event internally. I would have to say that’s an understatement.

It’s sad for a man’s entire career to be overshadowed by something like this, but sometimes something happens that is so wrong that it should overshadow everything he’s done.  Especially if the motivations for doing so were to protect the reputation of a habitual child molester and the sanctity of a football program.

Often times, there’s a gray area. Other times, there’s only black and white.

Joe Paterno has officially announced his retirement and expressed his regrets that he didn’t do more to stop this. So do I, Joe. So do I.

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(The journalist in me hates the excess of adjectives, but there really aren’t enough for this one.)

University officials announced today the resignations of athletic director Tim Curley and  vice president Gary Schultz. The two will be arraigned in District Court in Harrisburg on charges of perjury and failure to report under Pennsylvania’s child protective law, after they did not call police following eyewitness accounts from a graduate student of Sandusky assaulting a child in an athletic facility shower.

Sandusky is accused of attacking eight boys across a period of 15 years, with charges ranging from inappropriate touching to statutory rape. Amid the swirl of information disclosed about the case, a few key allegations have emerged.  The graduate student is said to have witnessed Sandusky sodomizing a young boy in a shower in the University’s Lasch Football Building. This person also indicates, per the grand jury testimony, that he told Penn State football coach Joe Paterno what he saw the very next day.

What did JoePa do? Well, he told Curley and Schultz, who told their boss, university president Graham Spanier, who then not only did not report this crime to authorities, but instead banned Sandusky from bringing children onto campus and “limited his access” to university facilities. Although he retired in 1999, Sandusky apparently remained welcome on campus, considering he was working out in the weight room there several times last week, until his arrest on Saturday.

The charges detailed in a 23-page grand jury report after a three-year investigation are way beyond what Spanier called “troubling.” How many “alleged” incidents of a retired coach “horsing around” with children in locker room showers is too many before you shut it down? One. That’s how many. A janitor reported witnessing Sandusky assaulting a child in 2000. A mother complained about him showering with her son. No one could do anything about this? Not one person in these investigations could fight back against a machine that protects a man like this?

It’s frightening, really.

In a statement yesterday, Paterno said:

As my grand jury testimony stated, I was informed in 2002 by an assistant coach that he had witnessed an incident in the shower of our locker room facility. It was obvious that the witness was distraught over what he saw, but he at no time related to me the very specific actions contained in the Grand Jury report. Regardless, it was clear that the witness saw something inappropriate involving Mr. Sandusky. As Coach Sandusky was retired from our coaching staff at that time, I referred the matter to university administrators.

I understand that people are upset and angry, but let’s be fair and let the legal process unfold. In the meantime I would ask all Penn Staters to continue to trust in what that name represents, continue to pursue their lives every day with high ideals and not let these events shake their beliefs nor who they are.

So if the facts of the case are indeed true, what the name represents in this case is allowing a known sexual abuser not only to avoid criminal charges and maintain his quality of life with absolutely no punishment or even removal for the place where he conducted this despicable behavior, but also showing absolutely no concern for the multiple children he is accused of assaulting, including the minor child present with him in the athletic facility the day of the witnessed assault.

The name represents allowing a person who attacks children to do so in an environment that is intended to be one of the premier centers of higher learning in the country.

The name needs some work. The name should be ashamed of itself. It should be held accountable, and immediately step up and make whatever reparations it can at this late date.

And before anyone mentions legacy and reputation and what that all means, I can tell you what I don’t care about in the context of this story:

*Penn State’s illustrious sports history. Irrelevant.

*JoePa. I don’t care what this means for Joe Paterno’s legacy at Penn State. I do care if he knew about it at all and did nothing about it, regardless of what he was required on paper to do.  And if that sounds judgy, fine. Sounds like that ten-year-0ld kid needed at least one adult to be judgy or loud or to say one thing on his behalf, rather than protecting a perpetrator.

If you sacrifice the well-being of one child for the safety and protection of an adult in a position of authority, you have spent your legacy, in my eyes. You are no kind of idol or role model — for a player, a student, a school, and certainly not any child.

*Jerry Sandusky’s feelings. If he’s somehow innocent, which I have to admit that I’m becoming increasingly jaded about given the number of cases where adults use their positions of power to disgustingly prey upon young people, well then. If he is guilty? I don’t care about anything else beyond the lives he sought to ruin.

And why? Why are these people always associated with children’s charities? Sandusky founded Second Mile, an organization that supports youth throughout Pennsylvania,  several years ago, and it now has its own CEO and large staff. The organization’s website indicates distance from Sandusky today, stating that their work for children will remain regardless of his actions.

It’s sick and it’s sad, beyond anything related to money and corruption that are the typical sob stories of college sports. It’s sad that an institution that talks a good game about itself would allow a person of relatively little consequence to conduct himself in this way while remaining affiliated, and it’s certainly ridiculous that this kind of behavior has been acknowledged to have occurred on the premises. Unacceptable.

I don’t care what JoePa does, although I do think that if he knew and condoned silence, that’s enough there to bring him to the end of his road without the glory he’d have likely carried with him otherwise. I do care that Jerry Sandusky be held accountable for his actions. And I do care that Penn State try, to the best of its ability, to do whatever can possibly reveal itself as the right thing.

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Next week has some big match-ups and I for one will be hoping for some upsets. We haven’t had enough of those this season for my liking.

And hoo boy, did we get some amazing games and some AWESOME upsets! I just woke up from my drunken stupor from all my Saturday celebrating on Monday morning, just to write this post!

Let’s get to those recaps!

Miami 24, Georgia Tech 7

The Hurricanes’ defense dominated this battle and held the 22nd-ranked Yellow Jackets to just seven points. Former football powerhouse Miami is now 2-2 in the ACC and won back-to-back games for the first time this season.

Purdue 21, Illinois 14

Illinois loses its second game this season, and second in a row, and stumbled its way out of the Top 25. As an ASU fan, this makes me happy. On one hand, the Illini beat my Sun Devils earlier this year, but on the other hand, the self-destruction of the Illini doesn’t help my Devils in the BCS rankings. The Big Ten is a crazy place this year!

Oregon 45, Colorado 2

Remember when Colorado was a good football school? Even worse is that the Ducks were short-handed, without their running back and quarterback, and still steamrolled the Buffaloes.

Michigan State 37, Wisconsin 31

Another unbeaten bites the dust! The sixth-ranked Wisconsin Badgers went down to the Michigan State Spartans on a last-minute, Hail Mary touchdown pass as the clock expired. The game was insane, as both teams blew 14-point leads, and Wisconsin lost their first game of the season, dashing their National Championship hopes. Wah, wah.

Texas Tech 41, Oklahoma 38

Stunner! In a game that was delayed because of lightening, the Red Raiders shocked the nation and the Sooners with an upset. It was just the third home loss for Bob Stoops in his career and the loss snapped a 39-game home winning streak for Oklahoma.

Let’s hope for another wild weekend this upcoming Halloween weekend in the college football ranks. As long as my Devils are on the winning side of things.

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Kristabella would like to point out that Kansas State is quietly still one of the eight unbeatens in the Top 25.

Arik Armstead, considered to be the top offensive/defensive line prospect on the West Coast by sports folks who care about such things, originally committed to the University of Spoiled Children Trojans football program on June 19, 2010. For those playing along at home, that’s nine days after the NCAA smacked down the program for what they called “improper benefits” given to then-Heisman Trophy winner and current Miami Dolphins running back Reggie Bush.

The long-storied program has arguably been in free-fall prior to the events leading up to the sanctions and certainly after those sanctions. While it would give me no amount of pleasure to recount all of those e events, including the desperate hiring of former Tennessee and Oakland Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrraiders head coach Lane Kiffin after Pete “Win Forever” Carroll, ahem, accepted the heading coaching job offered to him by the Seattle Seahawks, I’ll stick with this latest story.

"One day, all of this crap will be yours." "Gee, thanks."

You see, Arik Armstead is the younger brother of Armond Armstread, a pretty good defensive end on a pretty good defense. A quick look at Armond’s bio on USC’s athletics website yields the following info:

Armstead was moved to defensive tackle prior to 2011 spring practice after starting at end the previous 2 seasons and will look to make an impact on the inside as a senior in 2011. He likely will miss 2011 spring practice because of a medical condition. [Ed: emphasis added.]

Turns out that he missed more than that. The older Armstead was briefly hospitalized before USC’s spring practice after experiencing chest pains. Because of this, and as a safety precaution, Armond was held out of spring training and workouts. The defensive end claims to have no heart conditions or anything similar, and his independent doctors concur. However, USC didn’t clear him to play this year.

And now, the younger Armstead is backing away from his commitment to play football at USC. Coincidence? Not likely. Does it matter? Not to me. Awesome? Yes, yes it is.

“I have my visit to Notre Dame this weekend and I’m visiting Alabama (Nov. 4),” he said. “I’m also looking at Cal, Washington and Michigan for my last few visits, but I think after word gets out that I’ve de-committed, I think a few more schools will come calling as well and I’m definitely open to that.”

A few other schools like Oklahoma, Texas, and Oregon, for example. By my count, I see three schools that compete in the PAC-12 against USC. A very selfish part of me hopes that he chooses one of those other schools so that Lane Kiffin gets to see what could have been for four or five years. I imagine it would look a lot like this.

Yeah, that would be awesome.

Source, source, source, source, source

Now here are some highlights from this weekend’s games:

Oklahoma State 38, Texas 26

As if Texas didn’t hate the state of Oklahoma already, back-to-back weeks of getting their asses handed to them my the Sooners and the Cowboys didn’t add any love. Adding to Texas’ misery, they haven’t won at home in Big 12 games since 2009.

Clemson 56, Maryland 45

Clemson came back from an 18-point deficit to beat Maryland. The good thing was the Tigers won. The bad news is their defense gave up almost 500 yards of total offense to the 2-4 Terps. But Clemson stays unbeaten on the season. Barely.

Oregon 41, Arizona State 27

As a Sun Devil, I don’t want to talk about this game. But my Sparkys held their own against the Ducks for the first half. I was impressed with how they played because Oregon is good and FAST. They make any defense look like a bunch of Pop Warner kids.

Michigan State 28, Michigan 14

In a game of ugly throwback uniforms, the Spartans held on to beat, and upset, in-state rival Michigan, making it four straight years that MSU has beaten the Wolverines, the first four-game win streak for Michigan State since 1959-62. (And that was the longest run-on sentence ever!)

South Carolina 14, Mississippi State 12

Earlier this week, South Carolina’s star quarterback, Stephen Garcia, was kicked off the team. The Gamecocks held on for a narrow victory to improve to 4-1 in the SEC this year. The bad news is that the Gamecock’s offensive giant, running back Marcus Lattimore, who leads the SEC in rushing average, left the game in the fourth quarter with a leg injury. On Sunday, Steve Spurrier announced he’s out for the season. That loss, with the loss of Garcia, could be huge for the Gamecocks and their 2011 season.

Ohio State 17, Illinois 7

The Buckeyes reminded the nation that they are down, but not out as they upset the 16th-ranked, undefeated Illinois. The Illini haven’t beaten Ohio State at home since 1991.

Kansas State 41, Texas Tech 34

Kansas State has gone under the radar this season and came back to win to keep them undefeated this season. Kansas State is 6-0. Who knew?

Next week has some big match-ups and I for one will be hoping for some upsets. We haven’t had enough of those this season for my liking.

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When I was little, I won a rabbit at the fair after popping three balloons in a row with a dart.

My parents were pissed, but I loved that rabbit, carnie mange and all.

One summer day, I put the rabbit in our fenced backyard to frolic around and do rabbit stuff, and completely forgot about it until dinner. By the time I went out back to get him, I couldn’t find Norman Bates (I was a weird kid) anywhere.

I was hysterical, and my parents told me that Norman Bates probably saw some of his bunny friends and climbed over the fence to be free.

Every morning, for a week, I left a plate of carrots and lettuce in the backyard, in the hopes that he would return.

He never did.

Years later, my dad finally admitted that he had left the gate open and Norman was hit by a car. But I refused to believe him, and demanded that he describe what the dead bunny on the road looked like, because there was no way it had been Norman Bates.

Jim Tressel is my Norman Bates.

I’ve had 120 days to digest that he is gone, but until I saw his guts splattered across the front end of a car, I still couldn’t grasp that every Saturday, he won’t be on the field in his vest and headset.

Last week, playing Miami, I saw the roadkill. In fact, I smelled it. And it stunk.

We Buckeyes aren’t used to this. We are used to dominating the game despite our excessive penalties, making it to either the National Championship or a prestigious bowl game, and then blowing it. This is how we do things.

We opened our season plowing through Akron, just eking by Toledo, and then, last week, falling to Miami and falling from the NCAA ranking.

What the fuck, y’all!?

So this is what this feels like?

A whole suck ass season paying the piper for greedy, entitled first stringers and our demi-God enabler of a coach.

Things looked bleak, until yesterday. Coming off a painful 24-6 loss to Miami, Interim Coach Fickell swapped out starting senior QB Joe Bauserman, for freshman Braxton Miller in their match against Colorado, and from the moment he took the field, it was clear he was going to be running the show for the rest of the season. What he didn’t complete in passes he made up for in foot work and mobility. He reminded me of a young Troy Smith. You may remember him (cough cough, Heisman winner). With Miller at the helm, OSU pounded out a 37-17 win over Colorado, finally lighting a fire under what felt like a hot mess of a offense last week.

Does this mean Ohio State going to re-emerge this year, nabbing a Big Ten Title? I don’t know. But if you listen really closely, you can hear the entire state of Ohio exhaling.