Notes now that the numbers are coming in on the weekend's NFL combine in Indy:

The fastest 40-time did not belong to Darren McFadden, whose blistering, heroic 4.27 at 211 pounds was the buzz of the weekend. McFadden wasn't even the fastest running back: that would be East Carolina's Chris Johnson, who burned Boise State in December and turned in an unbelievable, official 4.24 on one of his attempts over the weekend. Johnson may not be big enough to go in the first round (he was 197 pounds, smaller than any of last year's pro starters), especially after some questions were raised about how his racing methods:

The other burner was Dexter Jackson, a track guy last seen by gridiron fans torching Michigan's secondary on behalf of Appalachian State, who clocked in with a 4.27 on one of his runs. Big James Hardy of Indiana was faster than expected and may move into the first round after running a 4.47; the only legitimately fast quarterback was San Diego's Josh Johnson, who put up a 4.44.

On the disappointing side of the track, Mario Manningham's speed is all the undersized receiver had going for him in his bid for the first round, and his effort this weekend was weak: 4.59 and 4.62, officially, from a 181-pounder expected to easily go sub-4.4. That kind of letdown could knock him from the first day.

Kudos to Chad Henne and Sam Keller on cracking the 5.0 barrier in the 40, a mark cohorts Erik Ainge, Alex Brink, Paul Smith and Anthony Morelli juuuuust missed. Morelli, however, was at least a finalist for the positional award for "Monster Appendage" of the weekend, lugging in a hand measuring one-eighth of an inch shy of a ten full inches, best of his group.

The Morelli hand was second in freakishness only to the arm of Dennis Dixon, which measured a truly orangutanian 36 and one-quarter inches. No other quarterback had even comparable lank attached to them; the only other limb measuring longer than 34 inches was that of San Diego State's Kevin O'Connell, which still put him a good two inches behind Dixon's unseemly catapult. Here is the difference when compared to the entire class of quarterbacks, graphically:

The big spike at the end is all Dixon. And when it comes to big spikes, length and unseemly catapults at the combine, as in everywhere else in life, inches are everything.

Colt Brennan gained 23 pounds in a little over a month, according to the combine scales, up from 185 at the Senior Bowl to 208 at the combine. Thus ends speculation that the former accused rapist is a too-skinny ectomorph and begins speculation that he is a reckless steroid abuser. Where the NFL is concerned, the latter is unquestionably a better career move, until Congress wags its finger.

On the other side of things, DeSean Jackson will tumble from the top of the receiver charts, likely landing in James Hardy's shirt pocket: the Cal star checked in just shy of 5-foot-10 and weighed 168 pounds, a good inch and ten pounds shorter/lighter than last year's measures on his prototype comparison, Ted Ginn. Presumably Jackson can still run (his best time is listed at 4.31) and catch but will probably stand - along with Andre Woodson, who showed up to get measured but didn't run or throw - as the biggest loser of the weekend.

They didn't measure Jacob Hester's 40 time, or any that of any other fullback, according to this (though the site did list times for offensive linemen, none below a 5.0). Not that they needed to - cuz that boy just plays footbaw the way it was meant to be played, son - but I was really interested.

Interesting note in an online diary by Army punter Owen Tolson, who chronicled his combine experience for Army's athletic site and relayed this nugget:

No kidding, Owen. Odds are the network saw the punter from Army was walking around and said, "Let's get this kid on for a compare-contrast with the real athletes. It'll be like the normal people on American Gladiators!" If Tolson didn't ace the vertical, he did nail the interview portion of the rounds, as you might expect. So good luck, Owen, and all you hopeful punters and long snappers out there. Keep reaching for the stars, and the high snaps.

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More outstanding Speedy Gonzalez clips may be found here and here. "Roach," indeed. And before the inevitable onslaught of "Colt Brennan Shirtless" searchers weighs in, Colt is currently accused of neither rape or steroid abuse. Thank you and enjoy your low-rise bounty.

Following is the full text of those portions of Reggie Bush's planned deposition in the Lloyd Lake breach of contract lawsuit that have been made public to SMQ.
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In March of 2005, did you use Michael Michaels' credit card to charge more than $2,000 in hotel stays in San Diego and Las Vegas?

Bush: The rise in the general price level attributed to an increase in the volume of money and credit relative to available goods and services has rendered any concept of monetary value that might have seemed true in March 2005 obsolete. Under current conditions, it is not possible to speculate on the value of any so-called "stay" in any establishment, if such stay did indeed occur within the city limits of the jurisdicitions described, which I do not recall and cannot confirm given the insufficiency of information based on impermanent definitions of the subjective concept, "value."

In April 2005, did your mother and stepfather move into a 3,000-square foot home purchased by Michaels, with the understanding he would be paid after you were drafted?

Bush: If by "understanding" you mean "the power to make experience intelligible by applying concepts and categories," I would say, no, there was no application of conceptual or categorical intelligence in the so-called transaction. No.

Did New Era Sports pay you almost $13,000 to buy a black 1996 Chevrolet Impala SS in Los Angeles?

Bush: Well, that would depend on your definintion of "black," which as we know is variable subject not only to personal experience and perception in the presence of specific conditions in which the reflection and absorption of light, shadow and vantage point are ideal, but also shifting scientific, governmental and cultural standards. What was "black" in 2005 may not be considered "black" today. Is the car "black"? What about when it's covered in dust*? Is Barack Obama "black"? These are subjective criteria to the extent that no agreement may be entered into with any predictive commitment to the nature of the eventual purchase. So the answer must be "No."

Did you say in a December 2005 phone call after winning the Heisman that your relationship with New Era was still on despite fractures between the agency and your family?

Bush: The nature of fractures as I understand it applies to minerals rather than informal human relationships that may or may not exist. I have no concept of the act or process of breaking or the state of being broken outside of bauxite, or perhaps aenigmatite, Na2Fe2+4Fe3+2Si6O20, under proper conditions.

Were you present at a February 2006 meeting with Michaels and his attorney in which the two were patted down and your representatives offered a $100,000 settlement?

Bush: If by "present," you mean physically in the hypothetical room, if such room existed under the circumstances described, then that presence by definition must be based on the a posteriori unification of empirical evidence with the senses to create a priori reality. Leibniz could not conceive of any reality at all as without such genuine unity, but quantum study has made self-evident the disconnect between our senses and the so-called "reality" of matter conceived as `particles' generating `forces' or `fields' in `space' and `time.' In fact, as Locke and Kant suggest along with Bishop Berkeley, our conception of "reality" is an individual construction of the mind's synthesis of sensual stimuli, which in itself is only a fleeting perception of imprecise, constantly moving waves consisting of energy transfers in a perpetual state of flux. By the time we perceive what we describe as `reality,' the physical basis for that perception has changed innumerably. As von Uexkull said, "We know that there is not one space and one time only, but that there are as many spaces and times as there are subjects." So there is no sound basis for hypothesizing any individual's "presence" in a fixed moment in a purely theoretical "time" and "space."

Is that guy flashing a .22?

Bush: [Icy, silent stare.]

Thank you for your time, Mr. Bush.

Bush: Let's bounce.

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* Mr. Bush would like to note for the record that the reference to one of his vehicles "covered in dust" is strictly theoretical and would never occur in reality, subjective or otherwise, or there will be hell to pay for some Mexicans.

Wherein SMQ examines the final regular season statistics in more than a dozen major categories to suss out who succeeded in what and how that statistical success correlated to overall success in terms of final record. I do not have the luxury of a high-powered supercomputer or degree-type qualification in mathematics or statistics, but analysis here will be driven as deep as my egghead, tinfoil cap curiosity and cell phone calculator will take it. That is to say, quasi-scientific at best. If you've ever said "the only number that matters is the one on the scoreboard" or anything to such effect, click here and don't be such a philistine.
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Part One: Which stats correlate most closely with winning?
Part Two: What do the best teams do the best?
Part Three: ACC Game-by-Game Results

Part Four: Big East Game-by-Game Results

Here I'm looking for what I've referred to previously as "the forest," the big-picture, macro look at the correlation of statistics to winning on a game-by-game basis. To do that, I'm looking hard at game-by-game data (using very useful box scores from ESPN) in each BCS conference to put into a catch-all chart covering hundreds of games. Here are the results from the 2006 season, with each conference's results linked therein; they're also linked on the left sidebar.

For each of the 28 games played among Big East teams last year, I developed a winning percentage for each of eleven major statistical categories (the stats below are listed in offensive form, but merely flip the records for a defense-centric point of view) as well as a pair of "control" categories, "home team" and "first to score." For example, if the winning team outgained its opponent running the ball, that game was marked as a "victory" for the rush offense category; if the loser had a higher conversion rate on third down, the game was marked as a "defeat" for the third down efficiency category. And so on for each of the categories in each game until the supply of examples was dry. At that point, each category's "record" was added up to determine its correlation to victory among the group as a whole.

Like the ACC, the Big East results might not be particularly representative of the national norm because it, too, was a very run-heavy conference: UConn, Rutgers, South Florida and West Virginia were all particularly ground-oriented offenses, and only WVU and Rutgers in the group were very prolific overall. And in the Scarlet Knights' case, that success didn't often carry over from the non-conference creampuffs to Big East teams. But aside from Brian Brohm at Louisville, the passing situation here was generally pretty mediocre, to say the least, and big passing stats meant virtually nothing at all:

Category	Win %	Record
Rush Yards	.852	23-4
Turnover Margin	.840	21-4
3rd Down %	.741	20-7
Yards/Rush	.731	19-7
Yards/Pass	.731	19-7
Yards/Play	.679	19-9
Total Yards	.643	18-10
Time of Possession	.607	17-11
First to Score	.607	17-11
First Downs	.536	15-13
Home Team	.536	15-13
Pass Yards	.321	9-19
Fewest Penalty Yards	.227	5-17

Again, a good rule of thumb is, if it's less relevant than "First to Score," it's basically random. As you'd expect, every yardage-based category except passing offense had a strong correlation to victory here, and teams with better total rushing numbers (remember: a result of the defense stopping the run as much as the offense running well) were completely dominant, winning at better than 80 percent clip. In the same vein, games were competitive enough that turnovers were a nearly immutable indicator of wins and losses.

The OCD version follows the jump...

Continue reading this post »

The NFL Draft is always something of a mystery to me as a college fan, and never moreso than in the months between the end of the season and the selection day itself, when players begin mysteriously rising and falling without actually taking a snap. Both eye-popping and brow-furrowing revisions coming out of the combine always beg the question: where were these benefits/problems in the original scouting report, the one actually based on game performance? No player is made or broken by his time in a ten-yard cone drill, whatever that is, exactly, but nagging doubts can cost the top picks millions.

If you're going to slide in the scouts' collective opinion without the benefit of another game, it's probably best it happen early in the process, so there's enough time for the conventional wisdom to run its course, recede, and break into a wave of "I don't care what he runs/says/scored on the Wonderlic/snorts off hookers, he's just a football player" backlash to ride into draft day. In a glass-half-full sort of way, then, it's good the skeptics are getting their shots in on these guys early:

Darren McFadden. It's not possible to doubt his otherwordly athleticism. Please.

Play them at the same time. They’re basically the same video.
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There is no such thing in the draft as a sure thing, though, so the shot on McFadden is aimed at his "maturity," in question after the fight that sidelined him for Arkansas' opener against USC with a broken toe in 2006, the brief illegal agent flap in December and a piddling arrest for mixing it up at a piano bar last month. McFadden will be able to buy the piano bar and the rest of the block no matter what, but all maximum investments have to be picked apart without sentiment or mercy:

...which has never stopped anyone where such staggering talent is concerned, with the exception of all the wary, do-gooder teams who passed on Warren Sapp...and...Randy Moss. Ahem. McFadden is barely human entity who got dat wood right hurr and won't fall out of the top five.

Andre Woodson. Woodson is a great story, the best quarterback in the SEC over the last two years and one of the most valuable players in the country. He has the size, arm strength, etc. But anybody who's ever hit "Google Image Search" on him knows the kid is a first-ballot entry to the Funky Release Hall of Fame:

Different does not equal bad, necessarily, but when a first round pick is at stake, teams want a platonic ideal. After an iffy week at the Senior Bowl, the thinking of the moment is not only that the risk is too high for Woodson's junky windup in the first round, which once seemed assured, but that a poor combine showing might knock him out of the entire first day:

It would help if Woodson could move at all, which he can't (negative 300 yards rushing the last two years), or if, I dunno, maybe the combine staff could bring in the secondaries of Louisville, Florida, LSU and/or Florida State? They seem to bring out the best in him.

James Hardy. Hardy is a huge, strong receiver with outstanding numbers despite the near-total absence of a competent passer at Indiana, and when he declared for the draft in January, I used the projection of the site NFL Draft Scout to state confidently that Hardy "will be the first receiver off the board in April" despite his so-so speed. What does Draft Scout have to say about him now, after that bullish intro to the board? Eh:

The same report also mentions a 2006 domestic dispute arrest between Hardy's freshman and sophomore seasons, later expunged when his girlfriend called it a misunderstanding. We knew he was kinda slow for an elite receiver in January, we knew he had a past. He was the top receiver on Draft Scout's board then; he's number eight now, and apparently destined for the second round. What changed here, other than the realization Hardy might actually put up the suspected subpar 40 time at the combine?

Jordan Dizon. Ditto Dizon, a four-year starter who led the nation in solo tackles last year and was Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year. By NFL standards, he's not big, fast or strong. He's going to bomb the combine and wind up in the fifth round:

In other words, he has nothing measurable going for him, the kiss of death over the next two months. He's just a footbaw playa, dammit!

Who's on the other end of the stock trade? Guys who can run like a maniacal, methed-up wind: East Carolina's Chris Johnson, Penn State's Justin King and Auburn's Quentin Groves, who was slowed by injuries a lot of last year but literally, according to the scouts, runs like a cornerback - the Auburn staff has reportedly timed the 250-pound DE/OLB in the 4.4 range.

But don't take their word for it. Ask Carlton Medder and Alesana Alesana...

Yeah, it’s not just speed. He’s only a projected second-rounder, but if I was a defensive coordinator at any level, I’d be frothing at the mouth over Quentin Groves.

A new feature, hopefully: Wading through the weeds of free message boards for usefulness and its direct opposite.
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Rumor. Penn State fans assessing their chances of landing Terrelle Pryor are getting more confident as time goes by: every day he doesn't commit to Ohio State is another day to hope against hope:

Hope, meet, uh, reality?... Definitely. Ohio State certainly still thinks so, but even OSU partisans are getting a little impatient. What's worse/less fair: the OSU fan who compares Pryor to Maurice Clarett or the preemptively striking Michigan fan who doesn't want the most sought-after quarterback in the country, anyway, cuz he looks (and therefore probably throws) like Soulja Boy?

The other hope on Penn State boards, though no more realistic, is that JoPa might be meeting soon with President Graham Spanier about his future, i.e. establishing some kind of date for Paterno's glorious and completely voluntary concession of power. A PSU fan even stopped in on an OSU board to place Pryor's eminent commitment there at the feet of the Lions' zombie coach:

That is decidedly the minority report re: supporting JoPa, but not in respects to his future: the question isn't if Paterno is gone soon, but how, and who replaces him. And how can they be sure it doesn't devolve into an Eddie Robison situation, or that the next guy isn't also named "Paterno"?

Completely unsubstantiated, but you heard it here first: Mario Fannin arrested? ... Ex-five star O-line recruit James Wilson is looking to leave Florida.

Rivalry, Ridicule and Randomness. Best post of the week in many ways probably belongs to "ksushalovesthevols" on Vol Nation who pens an open letter to his her team: "I don't want apology letters; I want you to stop getting arrested."

Stop underage drinking? Is this or is this not still America, ksusha? Stop having sex with underage girls? Whatever happened to tradition? Florida fans ask you.

Buckeye Grove has breaking news on Michigan's new mascot:

As long as Papa Smurf remains seated at all times, he'll work out fine in the Big House.

"ArrowheadBlue," on the other hand, goes peacemaker on The Wolverine with a target M and OSU can both appreciate: The SEC All-Penal Team." Britton Colquitt's arrest was the final piece of the puzzle: the team now has a kicker and a punter and goes three-deep at quarterback. Though it should be noted that Iowa could field an entire offense or defense by itself.

This Explains Everything. Four posts on Gator Sports Forum since last Sunday have attracted more than 100 comments. See if you can spot the common theme:

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

More Individual threads I liked this week:

• Gator Sports Forum: If Jesus is an obvious #1, Tebow an obvious #2...Who is #3? For the greatest person who ever lived? "I vote for Tebow's parents for bringing us this gift." No, seriously: Tim Tebow best college QB ever. Too good for common articles, even.

• BlueWhite Illustrated: Reggie Bush Is a Lucky Man. "She said look I am armenian everyone knows armenians got big butts. Really??"

• Buckeye Grove: Good bars, etc. in Columbus? "If you want trashy women, there are plenty of strip clubs."

• Warchant: This has to be some kind of record for passing yards in a season. Check `09 Alabama commit A.J. McCarron's sophomore stats, according to Scout. Yeah, that would be a record.

• Husker Board: Why Does ESPN Hate Nebraska So Much? "Is it the down-to-earth graciousness Nebraskans possess? kindness? willingness to help?"

• Trojans Football Forum: OT: Mrs Rich Rodriguez IS Peg Bundy. Yikes. I dunno, what do you think:

The L.A. talent can spoil anyone, certainly, but remember, kids: beggars can't be choosers or judgers. I mean, even Peg Bundy turned into a normal mom on that show where John Ritter died.

• Fightin' Gators: What if Miami beats us? "Then what? Are we at an all time low?" (See also: What if The Citadel beats us? and What if Hawaii beats us? Are we at an all time low?)

• The Victors: What's up with the in-depth Obama-Clinton debate thread on a sports board? At least there's a misogynistic dig at Michelle Obama in there, albeit in the most egghead-ish possible terms. (Seriously, Does the Law of Marginal Utility apply to BJs?).

"Ultimate Expression of a Neighboring State's True Inner Self" Link of the Week. Also courtesy The Victors (thread here):

They'll be here all week, folks.

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BTW: That "OT- Erin Andrews pics" post on every board? Spam, dawg.

Wherein SMQ examines the final regular season statistics in more than a dozen major categories to suss out who succeeded in what and how that statistical success correlated to overall success in terms of final record. I do not have the luxury of a high-powered supercomputer or degree-type qualification in mathematics or statistics, but analysis here will be driven as deep as my egghead, tinfoil cap curiosity and cell phone calculator will take it. That is to say, quasi-scientific at best. If you've ever said "the only number that matters is the one on the scoreboard" or anything to such effect, click here and don't be such a philistine.
- - -

Part One: Which stats correlate most closely with winning?
Part Two: What do the best teams do the best?

Part Three: ACC Game-by-Game Results

Cumulative statistics and statistical rankings, as assessed in parts One and Two, are nice, neat and telling in their own right, but the overall averages also have the power to mislead: what's true in the macro is not necessarily true in the micro. It's fine to establish, for example, that the top 20 rushing teams in the country win, say, 59 percent of the time over the course of the season, as I reported in Part One. But that big picture doesn't tell us anything about how rushing stats correlate to victory on a game-by-game basis - because there's so much variability within the season-long average, it's possible the team with better rushing numbers in any given game won 80 or 90 percent of the time. Think of it this way: if a team finishes 20 percent better than its average in a given category every time it wins and 20 percent worse than its average every time it loses, that category has a perfect correlation with winning and losing. But that may not necessarily show up in the final average.

So in addition to establishing the impact of numbers from the "forest" perspective, it's probably more useful to get down into the trees.

To do that, I'm looking hard at game-by-game data (using very useful box scores from ESPN) in each BCS conference to put into a catch-all chart covering hundreds of games. Here are the results from the 2006 season, with each conference's results linked therein; they're also linked on the left sidebar.

For each of the 49 games played among ACC teams last year, I developed a winning percentage for each of eleven major statistical categories (the stats below are listed in offensive form, but merely flip the records for a defense-centric point of view) as well as a pair of "control" categories, "home team" and "first to score." If the winning team outgained its opponent running the ball, that game was marked as a "victory" for the rush offense category; if the loser had a higher conversion rate on third down, the game was marked as a "defeat" for the third down efficiency category. And so on for each of the categories in each game until the supply of examples was dry. At that point, each category's "record" was added up to determine its correlation to victory among the group as a whole.

The ACC results may be the least representative of the national results because the conference is easily the most defensive-oriented and conservative in the country. If not for Matt Ryan and a solidly balanced attack at Clemson, the entire league would have almost no major offensive weapons to speak of. Keep that in mind when scanning the quick and dirty, portable results:

Category	Win %	Record
Rush Yards	.833	40-8
Yards/Rush	.830	39-8
Yards/Pass	.771	37-11
Yards/Play	.702	33-14
First Downs	.698	30-13
Total Yards	.688	33-15
First to Score	.688	33-16
Turnover Margin	.676	25-12
Home Team	.583	28-20
3rd Down %	.542	26-22
Time of Possession	.531	26-23
Passing Yards	.521	25-23
Fewest Penalty Yards	.323	10-21

If it's less relevant then "Home Team," it's almost random. So where the ACC is concerned, at least, I would regard everything below "Turnover Margin," which correlated to winning a little more than two-thirds of the time, with extreme suspicion. Every yardage-based category except passing offense had a strong correlation to victory, predictably, and even more predictably, teams with better total rushing numbers (remember: a result of the defense stopping the run as much as the offense running well) were dominant, winning at better than 80 percent clip. Given the quarterback situation here past Ryan, it's no surprise that efficiency rather than sheer yardage apparently played a much greater role in winning and losing.

The OCD version follows the jump...

Continue reading this post »

From a reader: There are a lot of rules about when a fumble can/can't advance the ball, when a fumble out of the end zone results in a turnover (or a score), when a fumble out of bounds seems to negate the fumble itself. ... can you put together a compendium to help us follow the bouncing ball?

All rules re: fumbling come from Rule 7, Section 2 of the 2007 NCAA Rule Book.

Ballcarriers have never been allowed to intentionally fumble a ball forward. For most of the game's history, "intention" was left to official judgment. The play that changed the rule was the famous "Holy Roller" in 1978:

The result was a change in pro and college rules that forbid any advancement of fumbles on fourth down by the offense, regardless of intention. On fourth down, fumbles go back to the spot. This is the fundamental NCAA rule:

In short, on first, second and third downs, a fumble is still in play for advancement by any player on either team, as long as it's clear the ballcarrier didn't intentionally throw or bat the ball forward, like so:

The USF touchdown on that play was called back on replay because of illegal advancement; the YouTube poster on the clip (a USF fan, no doubt) labels it "a bullcrap call," and he's completely wrong. Had it been an "innocent" fumble, though, or had the ball gone backwards, the recovery and score would have been legal (this was the original call on the field).

Enforcement can be spotty. I remember a play during Southern Miss' game with Illinois in 2002, when the Illini knocked the ball loose on a sack around midfield. Thinking it was an incomplete pass, a frustrated Illinois lineman literally kicked the ball about 30 yards toward the USM end zone, where it was eventually recovered by one of his teammates and run in for a touchdown. The rules don't address it specifically, but there's no way an intentional kick is a legal advancement of a loose ball. If Southern Miss hadn't recovered to win, I'd still be livid. But there was no replay in 2002.

A fumble that crosses the goalline and rolls out of bounds before it's recovered, of course, is a touchback or safety, depending on the end zone.

There is also something the rulebook refers to in Rule 7, Section 1 as a "Planned Loose Ball," known in popular parlance as a "Fumblerooski," which has not been seen in college football in ages (this is not a fumblerooski) because of this addition to the prohibitions:

Offensive linemen are also prohibited from receiving a "hand-to-hand snap." So if you imagine your fifth-year, walk-on guard rumbling downfield with the ball, he has to be in the shotgun.

The most confusing rule is probably on muffed kick and punt returns recovered by the kicking/punting team, explained thusly as part of Rule 5:

So kicking/punting teams can recover a loose ball, but cannot advance it. The offense takes over at the spot of recovery.

Fortunately, the NCAA has nothing like a "Tuck Rule," so this travesty...

...could never be justified in college.

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If you have any kind of question for CFB Explainer, send it along to sundaymorningqb-at-yah00, etc. Don't be afraid to get complicated.

For all the increasingly vocal Paterno critics who ever said "He's hanging on too long," Dennis Dodd delivers today's ammo, courtesy Terrelle Pryor's high school coach, Ray Reitz:

Yes, like Paterno's career, Pryor's recruitment has outlasted the Castro administration. The nation's most sought-after prep is still vascillating on his football choice through basketball season, which will go on as long as he continues posting ridiculous stat lines in the playoffs. The kid's hedged so long, Dodd says even Memphis has decided to trot a mule into the derby. Who knows? From what we hear, Tommy West could sell Graceland in this market.

And what high school kid wouldn't identify with Tom Bradley, a 30-year Paterno assistant in his early fifties? In relative terms, that makes him basically the Obama of the PSU staff, and now that his recruiting tactics have passed the brutal "Dodd Test" for intensity and fairness, his route to the boss' chair next year is just staying in front, collecting the endorsements and counting the superdelegates, dawg. (Don't even try to get a seat in Bradley's life-affirming cornerbacks meetings. Pissing in the wind.)