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Coaching Carousel (Football)
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Curbelo Fanboy
BERTBALL IS LIFE
I have a suspicion PSU is setting themselves up to be the next Nebraska (tho they are closer to high level success). A great program who decides title or bust. 9 or 10 wins a year isn't enough. Eventually that can lead to declining results if the next guy doesn't measure up. Go thru that cycle two hires in a row & boom, you have mediocrity.
They are already at best the 3rd program in terms of prestige in the league. And one could argue USC is ahead of them historically. A few down years with a mid hire & they slip into the middle tier.
There is no argument. USC is ahead of them historically.
Shocking that this is getting messy
www.espn.com
Kiffin denies ultimatum by Ole Miss: 'Not true'
Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin on Tuesday denied he has been given an ultimatum from the administration to make a decision about his future with the Rebels.
Also argument to be made for Oregon.
OrangeBlue98
Iowa is not in a great spot right now (LvilleILL1)
- Des Moines, IA
Honestly, that would have been infinitely more entertaining to witness.
The real question is will you being orange?
altgeld88
- Arlington, Virginia
Oh, yeah. USC far outstrips PSU historically. PSU was decent but nothing much until Paterno showed up in the mid-'60s. He quickly put them on the map and they were in the top tier consistently until they began to tail off in the late '90s.
(One bit of trivia indicating how important Paterno was to PSU football is that that Beaver Stadium sat only ~45k when he showed up. There's an SI article from '68 I have somewhere about the sudden rise of Penn State football with photos in which the countryside south of the stadium is visible in a shot taken at field level during a game. The stadium was basically two stands facing each other with a tiny horseshoe.)
Here it is:
Beaver Stadium: A Visual History Through The Years
From its grass roots beginnings, which featured the team playing on Old Main lawn, to the second largest football stadium in the nation, Beaver Stadium has undergone quite the transformation. Take a look at Beaver Stadium through the years.
onwardstate.com
As for Oregon, as someone here corrected me a long while ago, they were nothing until Mike Bellotti took over from Rich Brooks in the mid-'90s.
The Penn State fan base kvetches continually about how the late Paterno years were subpar. Franklin brought them all the way back. The idea that they're entitled to NCs is ludicrous. Paterno won two, in '82 and '86. Franklin took them to within a game of one last year and they gave him no slack.
As someone who deals with their fans regularly here in the DC region, I can assure you they're delusional. I agree that they're in danger of becoming Nebraska.
And we'll always have the 9-OT win in Happy Valley. I am still lmao about that one. Casey Washington, baby!
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Is there?
National Champships: Penn St - 4; Oregon - 0
Weeks ranked in AP poll: Penn St. - 717; Oregon - 396
Weeks at #1: Penn St. - 21; Oregon - 16
All time Bowl Wins: Penn St. - 31; Oregon - 16
Total Wins: Penn St. - 925 (#3 all time); Oregon - 650 (#36)
Total Losses: Penn St - 410; Oregon - 470
Winning %: Penn St. - .688; Oregon - .577
I think you can absolutely make the argument that Oregon is the better place to be right now. But historically, Penn St. has absolutely accomplished more than Oregon, who was not really a notable program until the early 2000s (the 2000 season was their first 10-win season and first top-10 AP finish since the 1940s).
Curbelo Fanboy
BERTBALL IS LIFE
I almost included them in the original post. They are still kind of "new" to the high levels of the sport. They really weren't a power til the last 15 or so years. They are started to build toward that in the mid/late 90's & really hit it big pretty consistently when Chip Kelly got there. Prior to say the mid 90's they were a fairly non descript program. Some good teams but not really in the upper echelon of the sport.
As long as Paterno was there, PSU was old school in a way you had to love - it was a link back to the 60's and 70's when you had working class kids from steel and mining towns playing on muddy fields on cold, gray November Saturday afternoons. It's obviously different now, but the uniforms and the setting of Beaver stadium still evoke that type of aura.
Curbelo Fanboy
BERTBALL IS LIFE
USC really benefits from the move to the Big Ten IMO. Their "profile" was fading as the mid 2000's glory years are 20 years in the past. The PAC 12 was fading into obscurity on a national scale. Moving to the Big has put them back in the spotlight for more than the annual matchup with Notre Dame. They've been in a prime national game for at least 3 games so far this year. @ IL, vs Michigan & @ND. With the Oregon game to come.
It has been a long time since they got that kind of exposure in the PAC 12 as their TV package fell off the face of the earth in the last decade.
altgeld88
- Arlington, Virginia
I'm always being orange
It's my default. Paired with Chicago maroon when in Blacksburg.
Below: (L) Wednesday evening at the bar watching the Illini v. Alabama and next Friday in MSG v. UConn compared with (R) Saturday in Lane Stadium and a week from Saturday v. UVa in Charlottesville:
[BTW... I was in Blacksburg in late October and my daughter (a senior there) and I were getting into my car when I got an "ILL- !!!" from a passing student because of my Illini license plate holder and block "I" magnet. Turns out she graduated from UIUC last spring and is in grad school at VT. She was rocking an Illini jacket in that slant 1LL1NO1S font I despise.
]
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I think time frame really matters here. A third of the people alive during PSUs last championship are no longer with us
Only OSU/UM/USC have them since 2000 and Washington the most recent after that.
The last 20-25 years total wins it's:
tOSU
ScUM
USC
Ore
Wisconsin
PSU
Wash/Iowa (PSU leads by 5 wins since 2000)
From the way the media talk about them you'd assume they're 2nd or 3rd on this list.
Sure, but doesn't the word "history" or "historically" typically involve a long time frame?
If the original post had been about "recent history" I'd go with Oregon. But that wasn't how it was framed.
Don't think it's coincidence
I'd argue washington has a better history than oregon.
altgeld88
- Arlington, Virginia
I'm amazed that the older I get, the further back the "history" of college football extends. When I was in college, it only extended back around 25 years. Now it goes back at least 65-75 or so. Funny how that works
If you're an Illinois fan, you're doing an injustice to your team if you don’t go back to at least Bob Zuppke.I'm amazed that the older I get, the further back the "history" of college football extends. When I was in college, it only extended back around 25 years. Now it goes back at least 65-75 or so. Funny how that works
altgeld88
- Arlington, Virginia
Agreed. I have a story about that. My surrogate grandfather a couple doors down from my childhood home in Ohio (my own grandfather lived out east), remarking when I told him I was hoping to go to Illinois, said I'd be walking on the hallowed ground of Bob Zuppke. I had no idea who he was talking about. In September 1983 the only thing I knew about Illinois football is that during my childhood it had been mediocre to poor and had only in the prior couple seasons begun to experience success.
Then I visited campus, walked into Memorial Stadium, took one look at the large granite block nested in the wall behind the NEZ bleachers, and thought "I need to look this guy up."
I remember stumbling across the Zuppke and Huff gravestones as a freshman and thinking the same thing.
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