GREAT THINGS AWAITING, EXPECTED OF CLARK

Since Joe Paterno became head coach of the Penn State football program in 1966, nine players (including Curt Warner later this year) have been inducted into College Football's Hall of Fame. Exactly zero of them played quarterback. But just because none of Paterno's signal-callers have been immortalized in South Bend, it doesn't mean that this position isn't one of the greatest harbingers for the Lion's success in a particular season. As a matter of fact, it just about guarantees it.

Consider that Penn State will be led by senior captain Darryl Clark at quarterback this season. Last season he won the Big Ten's Offensive MVP award and joined Kerry Collins and Michael Robinson as quarterbacks that have guided the Lions to a Big Ten title. However, unlike Collins and Robinson, Clark accomplished this feat before his senior year, injecting Penn State fans with optimism for his final campaign - and for good reason.

Beginning in 1968, Penn State has enjoyed twenty 10+ win seasons under Paterno. The absolutely remarkable thing about this accomplishment is that each time a quarterback led the Lions to 10+ wins and returned for his next season, he did it again. Think about that. Never has a Paterno-coached quarterback failed to deliver after tasting success in the form of a double-digit win season! Seriously...I looked it up.

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A similar look at the history of 10+ win seasons over the same time period at Ohio State, Michigan, USC, Notre Dame and Alabama shows that this occurrence is unique to Penn State among those schools. And as more evidence that the quarterback is the major reason for this phenomenon, only once (1972-1973) has a first-year quarterback taken over a 10+ win Nittany Lions team and managed to repeat that accomplishment.

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The expectations facing Clark in 2009 include successfully defending the conference championship, being the captain to a team full of untested talent on both sides of the ball, improving on his own individual numbers to make a run to the Heisman trophy and continuing the newest Golden Age of Penn State football that he watched begin from the sidelines as a freshman in 2005. That may seem like a lot to lay on the shoulders of one man, but Clark has his teammates, all of Nittany Nation and history to rely on.

TOM BRADLEY SPEAKS, SO DOES JOE...SORT OF

ESPN.com blogger Adam Rittenberg caught up with Tom Bradley recently to talk about the Nittany Lions' defense. Bradley will once again have to prove why he is one of the top coaches in America as the Lions try to replace three starters on the defensive line and the entire secondary.


TOM BRADLEY PART I


TOM BRADLEY PART II



Meanwhile, EDSBS has posted the transcript from a "conversation" between the two winningest active coaches, Joe Paterno and Bobby Bowden, about the controversy over some of Bobby's wins. Looks like Joe might not be as sympathetic as he's led us to believe.

FROSTING

The Penn State football team is coming off of an 11-2 campaign in 2008 that included a second conference title in four seasons, a berth in The Rose Bowl and the emergence of junior quarterback Darryl Clark as the Big Ten's Offensive MVP, but if the buzz surrounding the upcoming season is somewhat muted, blame the schedule.

While predictions for how the Nittany Lions will perform in defense of their conference crown are varied, the opinions on the schedule are consensus - it stinks. The Lions can't help the fact that the Big Ten appears to be short on contenders, but their non-conference schedule is truly atrocious. The four out-of-league opponents, Akron, Syracuse, Temple and Eastern Illinois, combined for just 12 wins against FBS competition last season, and none of them finished the year at .500 or better. Mix in the fact that all four of those games are at home and you've got a recipe for cupcakes.

That got us at The Floating Lion thinking about what were some of the weakest schedules the Lions have faced since Joe Paterno took over the program. It's easy to remember the many loaded schedules over the decades like 1982 (Pitt, Nebraska, Alabama, Notre Dame, West Virginia, Boston College) 1990 (Texas, USC, Notre Dame, Alabama, Pitt, Boston College) and 1999 (Pitt, Miami, Arizona, Ohio State, Michigan, Purdue, Michigan State) to name a few, but how about the bad ones? And, is 2009 the worst Penn State schedule of all time?

We've come up with a list of some of the team's weakest schedules, all in the hopes of putting this season's abomination in its proper place among the other soft lineups. We'll present each of them to you, before putting the question to a vote to find out which was the worst schedule of the last 45 years. Stay tuned...

HOMECOMING GAMETIME SET

Penn State officially announced on Monday that the Nittany Lions homecoming game against the Minnesota Golden Gophers on October 17 at Beaver Stadium will kickoff at 3:30 p.m. Along with the Iowa and Northwestern games, which were previously announced as beginning at 8:00 and 3:30 respectively, the Lions are slotted for three afternoon/primetime games this season with a fourth afternoon start (Ohio State) sure to follow.
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It was nearly a year ago that ESPN aired it's infamous Outside the Lines investigation into the criminal history of the Penn State football program. Many Blue and White fans still feel that the show was little more than a witch hunt and some conspiracy theorists hold that the show was an attack on Penn State and head coach Joe Paterno because of a hot-and-cold relationship with the network. At last check, ESPN was little concerned with fair and balanced reporting, but if it were, now might be a good time to prove it.

A good place to start would be an article written by Andrea Adelson of The Orlando Sentinel about the number of arrests the University of Florida program has suffered in the last four years...24 in case you were wondering.
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If you're looking to score tickets to that big game this year, your best chance might just to be to wait until the last minute. A post from The Business of College Sports from May 30 shows that ticket prices for some of this season's biggest rivalry games have actually gone down since they were last tracked in mid-March.

BUTTSCRATCHER!

It happens rather suddenly. One day, you're handling the off-season well - leafing through the sports pages, noting baseball box scores, and maybe even catching a period or two of an NBA or NHL playoff game. Then, all at once, like a tidal wave of suppressed memories and longings, that passion for college football arises and refuses to be ignored. Like an itch that must be scratched, college football has interrupted your regularly scheduled life and demands your attention.

It's been lurking beneath the surface since New Year's, but college basketball, opening day and the planning of summer vacations has done an adequate job of limiting it. Now, less than 12 weeks from the season's kickoff your resistance to the seduction of college football is futile.

Here at The Floating Lion, off-season football blogging has been nearly non-existent. Scouring the police blotters and reporting which 17-year-old kid "committed" to your school is hardly the kind of hard-hitting college football news that we relish commenting on. Still, we've silently observed as transfers, injuries and violations have helped to reshape the college football landscape and provide much-needed fodder for our addiction. Now, with the onset of preseason magazines and summer workouts, the focus of college football is back to where it should be, subjective analysis and daydreaming of 12-0.

So be sure to check back in frequently for updates and features that will help you get through the grueling homestretch before the season officially begins. Not that it ever really ended for any of us.

BCS TALK

Friday's discussion on the fairness of the current BCS system before a House of Representatives subcommittee will be shown live on C-SPAN. Interested fans can also watch the proceedings live online here. The discussion is slated to run from 10:00 a.m. until 12:30 a.m.

In related news, Joe Paterno told a pack of reporters on Thurdsay night that he would like to see the Big Ten expand to a twelfth team to allow the conference to play a league championship game. It's a move that Paterno thinks would give the conference a better shot a competing for a national title.

"I've tried to talk to the Big Ten people about, 'Let's get a 12th team -- Syracuse, Rutgers, Pitt -- we could have a little bit of a playoff,'" Paterno said.

The coach also fielded questions about the possibility of a team from the Northeast winning a national title, something that hasn't happened since the Lions captured one after the 1986 season.

"The only [Northeastern] team that's got a shot would be us, and yet we've got a tough job because the Big Ten is not as visible in the key times as the Southeastern Conference and the Big 12."

CORNLEY TO DECIDE ON FOOTBALL FUTURE NEXT MONTH

Greg Paulus isn't the only former college basketball star rumored to be making a move to the gridiron. Penn State basketball great Jamelle Cornley has been mulling over a career change to football, a sport that might give him a greater chance for success at the professional level.

The Nittany Lion senior, who's certainly got the physical build for life on the defensive line, plans to meet with Penn State football assistant coaches and team doctors soon to discuss his potential future with the pigskin. Teammate Talor Battle was quoted in The Daily Collegian as saying that he thinks Cornley should stick with his first love, basketball.

"He just loves it way too much to just try to go do the football thing, because that would just mean -- honestly, in my eyes -- is more for a money standpoint," the point guard said. "But I think he's really good and hopefully he gets a shot to play professionally in the NBA, and if not, I'm sure he'll have a great career in the overseas somewhere."

The article, published in Friday's paper, goes on to state that Cornley has received interest from professional basketball teams in Europe, but that he's taking time to make the best decision for himself, a decision that should come some time next month.