Observers of a Joe Paterno news conference may get a discourse on history, a treatise on current events or insight into the life of a coaching legend while they find out about the Nittany Lions.
Here are some snippets offered by the 82-year-old Paterno this week, each ending with the room erupting in laughter:
JoePa and the polls
Told that his team is No. 5: “No, don’t get me into that. I don’t know what we are, for crying out loud. Honest to God, are we No. 5? Is that what you’re telling me?”
Later he added, “I don’t know that we’re No. 5. You guys don’t seem to understand. I don’t read anything about us. I get the paper. I go to the bathroom. I take the paper in there and I scan it. The first thing I do is look at who died. All right. Second thing I look at are headlines. Something that says, ‘Paterno is the Greatest,’ I read it. If it says I’m a bum, I don’t even look at it.”
JoePa and his legacy
The subject comes up of a petition to name the field at Beaver Stadium after Paterno – posthumously.
the petition,” he said. “I don’t know that much about what it is to be dead. How much do you know what’s going on after you’re dead? Huh?”
JoePa on grooming
What about LB Josh Hull’s mustache?
“Has he got a mustache?” Then he acknowledges, “I guess I’ve seen it, but I haven’t noticed it. As long as it’s not coming down to his neck. … Is it?”
Informed that the mustache is not going down to Hull’s neck, Paterno added, “Then he’s all right. Geez, you guys must think I go around … It’s like that major in M.A.S.H., come out and review (the company) every morning. No. Great kid. Doing great. Playing well. Heck of a student. He’s an engineer, 3.5 grade-point average. If he wants a mustache, that’s OK.”
JoePa on the future of newspapers
“I feel bad about the way things have gone with the newspaper business, with the computers (Internet) … taking away some of the great guys I’ve known and who wrote well who set a standard for writing. Grantland Rice and those guys. … I love to read the newspapers. I’d love to read the sports page, but to be very frank with you, I don’t because so much of it is you guys (printing stories to keep up with the competition). … It’s a different world and it’s not the kind of world that I’m comfortable with.”
He concluded, “That’s a speech. I usually get 100 bucks for that.”
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teams could run to the line of scrimmage to avoid a replay review. No more.
Indiana coach Bill Lynch said officials have changed the way they control the game. On Saturday against Western Michigan, Lynch said an official would temporarily delay play to give the replay booth a second look.
Not that he’s complaining.
“If you watch now, they review everything. The umpire kind of stands over the ball,” he said. “They’re reviewing everything. That’s good, that’s the way it should be and it should be beneficial for both sides.”
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ON THE ROAD AGAIN: After a rout of Towson and a narrow win over Eastern Michigan, Northwestern plays on the road for the first time Saturday night at Syracuse. To overcome a home-field advantage, the Wildcats are practicing this week at their indoor facility to get ready for the din of the Carrier Dome.
“There’s no AC and nothing to help us in there,” S Brendan Smith said. “But they’re going to make the conditions in favor of them and not for us.”
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GRATEFUL SPARTANS: Michigan State, which plays at Notre Dame on Saturday, has won the last six matchups in South Bend, Ind. Ingrates!
me MSU president John Hannah always said Notre Dame and Minnesota helped the school gain conference acceptance over the fervent objections of an in-state neighbor 63 miles away.
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NO INSIDE INFO: Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez is releasing an injury report each Thursday, in part to keep gamblers from trying to get inside information.
“That’s a great fear for all of us coaches, people that don’t have the best interest of the young men at heart,” Rodriguez said. “Maybe they’ll ask somebody, ‘Hey, how’s so and so doing?’ We’ve told our team, ‘If it’s outside our team and outside your family asking about you, you don’t talk about that.”’
In the conference, though, there wasn’t much interest in adopting Rodriguez’s proposal to have every Big Ten team release an injury report each week as he says the ACC began doing last year.
“I don’t want to judge anybody else, but I thought it was a good idea,” Rodriguez said. “I think the policy protects the young men, it protects the program.”
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QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Purdue coach Danny Hope after a narrow 38-36 loss to Oregon, told that ESPN analysts Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit said that the Boilermakers had no chance and that the Ducks would score 50 on them: “Those guys don’t watch a lot of film.”
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R Darryl Stonum. … This week’s schedule: Indiana at Akron, Arizona at Iowa, Eastern Michigan at No. 25 Michigan, No. 8 California at Minnesota, No. 11 Ohio State vs. Toledo at Cleveland Browns Stadium, Temple at No. 5 Penn State, Northern Illinois at Purdue and Wofford at Wisconsin. … Illinois is idle before opening Big Ten play at Ohio State in a week.
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AP Sports Writers Mike Marot in Indianapolis; Rick Gano in Chicago; and Larry Lage in Ann Arbor, Mich.; and Associated Press Writer Cliff Brunt in West Lafayette, Ind., contributed to this report.
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