Saturday afternoon Penn State comes into Ohio Stadium. They bring James Franklin, a 2016 loss and a wall in front of the season's future.There's a lot to hate, so let's get started.
10. Courtney Brown
Penn State is responsible for the entirety of the Browns 21st century bender.
Out of all the defensive players from Penn State that have gone on to formidable NFL careers — LaVar Arrington, Cameron Wake, Tamba Hali etc. — the one that the Browns get stuck with is a consensus All-American and one of the biggest draft busts in NFL history.
Just the second season after the team had returned following taxpayers being extorted by their owner for a new stadium (whoops, wrong link. click here), Brown was supposed to be a dominant stalwart off the edge. Instead, Brown flaming out due to injury issues that diminished his production cast the cyclical path of the Browns' irrelevancy into further action.
But hey, "COOOOOME TO PENN STATE!"
9. The Jerseys
In Miracle — the best hockey movie of all time — coach Herb Brooks says, "The name on the front is a hell of a lot more important than the one on the back." That's true. But contrary to what Brooks says, his Olympic hockey players still have their names on the back of their jerseys. Olympic hockey players. They won the gold medal in 1980. They beat communists that were very good at slappy puck.
But, imagine thinking you're more prestigious and important to be simpler than the United States Olympic hockey team.
Imagine having won only two national championships and thinking that the institutional tradition is more important than giving your student-athletes any form of individualism.
I mean, one of the highlights of Bill O'Brien's tenure in State College was adding last names to the back of the jerseys. In the wake of scandal that involved zero of those athletes, that meant something.
James Franklin comes in and immediately returns to the tradition of no last names. Yeah, sweet. For the record, navy blue, black and white are clashing colors together.
8. Penn State is super stingy about "In-State" Tuition
College is expensive. College is expensive. College is expensive. Get it?
At any non-private institutions, in-state students are typically rewarded for attending a university within their home state. That is, if Penn State thinks that you live in your home state apparently.
In one instance, Penn State has denied in-state tuition to a student despite living in the state for years after the deaths of both her parents.
Rachel Higgins, a former New Jersey resident, moved to Pennsylvania following losing both of her parents to cancer by the end of her freshman year of school at Penn St. Despite having a Pennsylvania driver's license, taxes, being registered to vote in the state and even showing the appeal commission officials her parents' death certificates, Penn St. deemed no reason for her to receive in-state tuition.
Swell people they have over there in State College.
7. Penn State Fraternities Do really messed up things
The Beta Theta Pi fraternity at Penn State has been in the news recently following the death of a pledge.
A student was force fed wine, vodka, beer and a bevy of other liquor all to be considered a "brother" for a couple years before being cast into obscurity and the annual give-your-brothers drinking money mailing list.
After Tim Piazza fell 15 feet down a flight of stairs, they didn't call an ambulance until the following morning at 11 a.m. Piazza had bled for hours into his abdomen and suffered a skull fracture. He later died.
Among other things, another Penn State fraternity was sanctioned for creating and operating a private Facebook group filled with nude pictures from in-house guests.
6. Nittany Lion
The Nittany Lion mascot is an intricate creature — it isn't real, first and foremost. There is no such thing as a "Nittany Lion." Mountain lions lived near Mount Nittany, but there's no scientific name to ever validate them as a species.
But there is nothing more subliminally annoying about Penn State than the one-armed pushups and the baggy costume that the mascot rolls around in. I'd give the Nittany Lion a lot more street cred. if the thing didn't look like a Build-a-Bear met the Pokémon Zubat. For supposedly aiming to be a lion, it looks more like a mouse.
Ole Nittany has a history of drinking problems, too.
5. The 2016 Game
If there is anything more frustrating about the 2016 game than the fact that Ohio State blew a 10-point fourth quarter lead, it's that the Buckeyes essentially have themselves to blame for the culture centered around Penn State at the moment.
They created a monster.
Worse about this game than the fact that Ohio State essentially played with four down lineman the entire night, was the fact that they got beat with Penn State not even gaining 300 yards of offense the entire night.
Trace McSorley completed eight passes. Eight. He was 8/23.
Sitting in my off-campus house that night watching the game, I probably thought after the blocked field goal in my head, "the bald man who Penn State hired from Vanderbilt is into some dark, dark voodoo magic."
Crossing my fingers Saturday Ohio State doesn't roll out the "J.T. with designed runs into the near side of the boundary on 3rd & 6" offense.
4. The Athletic Founder Alex Mather
The Athletic has a talented number of writers that push out content that is different from a lot of what other people are doing nowadays. I truly hope they survive. But in the process, their Penn State grad founder certainly isn't doing them any favors with his public perception.
From New York Times' feature on The Athletic earlier this week:
“We will wait every local paper out and let them continuously bleed until we are the last ones standing,” Alex Mather, a co-founder of The Athletic, said in an interview in San Francisco. “We will suck them dry of their best talent at every moment. We will make business extremely difficult for them.
So essentially what we can all gather here is that in developing The Athletic, Mather has set the personal goal of doing away with print media, of doing away with Saturday morning high school sports coverage, of doing away with the local paper, to say the least.
He shall rue the day if the Marion Star ever folds and I can't read the police beat.
By monopolizing every talented writer who hasn't been adequately compensated after putting in years of worthy work, Mather is likening himself to the sports media doppelgänger of Martin Skhreli.
I mean think about it — Ken Rosenthal is storytelling for this guy. I almost wish he would have stayed writing on Facebook now.
Of course, the Nittany Lion walked back on the tone of his comments after push came to shove, but didn't help himself any either with this thread of tweets following.
and cold brews in SF are coffee, not beer!
— Alex Mather (@alex3780) October 23, 2017
Brews anywhere are brews — beers, tall ones, brewskis, cold ones — anything but some cold-brewed coffee. Brews give you liquid courage, iced coffee makes you think. Natty Daddies doing the most, apparently.
Stay tuned to see how long it takes Alex Mather to get bled dry.
3. James Franklin
Need more reason to hate Penn State?
Let's be real, beating Ohio State last year collectively saved James Franklin's job. Without the win they don't win the Big Ten, get the Rose Bowl or anything. They're playing in the Tim Horton's Timbit Bowl without it.
So to go from the brink of irrelevancy to now seemingly have all the gusto in the world, Franklin has seemingly become a world-beater. The worst part about this cue-ball's "swagger" is that it's all stemming from a lackluster Ohio State performance.
2. Joe Paterno
Joe Paterno knew. He let it happen. Repeatedly, systemically, as a watchdog and as a confidant for Jerry Sandusky. Say what you want, erect a statue and then tear it down, erect more statues that glorify Joe Pa, but the fact still remains — the holy grail of State College is made of sin and shame.
Joe Paterno knew what was happening at the top of his football program in 1998. Sandusky was arrested in 2011. For 13 years he knew something, but did nothing. He shouldn't be celebrated or admired or considered to be great. He's irrelevant to the discussion. And yes Penn State, if you don't recognize the vacated wins from1998-2011 he's the winningest coach in college football history, but you and I both know Paterno was more useful putting stain stick on the whites and scratching out scuffs on helmets than what he offered as a football coach for like the last six years.
And while the university and the fans and Penn State holds on to what little legacy remains, it is undeniable — Joe Pa knew (he pooped).
1. Jerry Sandusky
As much as this final one is about the man, it's also about the system behind it. We aren't shaming the program, staff and players for the actions of one man — that'd be heinous. But when it becomes more than the man himself and the institutional safeguard that was around Jerry Sandusky, it's hard not to hate.
If the winningest head coach in your school history does nothing until the third accusation of sexual abuse by your former defensive coordinator against a child, it is okay if someone hates your program.
If the system results in your university president, your vice president and the athletic director going to jail because they wanted to "protect the university's reputation." instead of reporting that a young male child had been sexually assaulted in an athletic program shower, it is okay if someone hates you.
