JoePa Some Random Guy's Most Hated Opponent

Some guy with a blog decided to rank his most hated opponents (non-players) and decided that Penn State's Joe Paterno is his #1. This blogger lives in central New Jersey where, and I quote, "men are men", and is a Yankees, Devils, and Rutgers fan. Here are his reasons for saying Paterno is his most hated opponent.

• He's spent 30 years picking on teams now in the Big East Conference.
• Penn State fans whine about JoePa's undefeated 1969, 1970, 1973 and 1994 squads not being awarded the National Championship.
• Paterno runs up the score on weaker opponents.
• Poaching players from other territories.

Those are the four main criteria for why Joe Paterno is his most hated opponent. OK, this could take a while...

Ol' Ratface spent the better part of 30 years picking on the teams now in the Big East Conference...

OK, let's first start out by calling the greatest coach in college football names based on his appearance. Though "ratface" is a new one; can't say I've heard him called that before. Kudos for the originality. He "picked" on the teams now in the Big East Conference? How did he "pick" on them? By beating them consistently? How is that his fault? The schools agree on playing each other. It's not as if JoePa said "you will play us" and that was that. Plus, Penn State is an east coast team, of course as an independent (before joining the Big Ten) they're going to regionalize and play the same east coast teams as often as possible. That was why JoePa tried to create an eastern football league in the early- to mid-1980's. This statement by the blogger is just sour grapes. Boo hoo, JoePa and Penn State are picking on us.

Penn State fans whine about how, with undefeated teams in 1969, 1970, 1973 and 1994, the Nittany Lions were not awarded the National Championship.

I don't care what team you like but every fan base complains about how many national championships the school has. Why? Because of the way it is handled, now and in the past. First of all there is no true NCAA National Champion. That's why football "national championships" are called MNCs, or mythical national championships. The NCAA does not award an FBS title every year. That crystal football the team gets for winning the BCS Championship is their own National Championship trophy. Teams aren't getting this
which is the true NCAA Trophy. It is awarded to 44 teams over 18 men's sports and 47 times over 19 women's sports during an academic year. Some sports have multiple tiers, hence the multiple National Titles per sport. Football has four tiers - FBS, FCS (formerly known as Division I-AA), Division II and III. The FCS, II, and III divisions all have an official National Champion. The FBS division does not. Because of the way the FBS title is handed out, through the BCS (and other rankings), multiple teams can say they earned the title. Doesn't matter if it's the BCS one or some podunk newspaper. The NCAA doesn't officially recognize any of them. Before the BCS came around in 1998, the AP title was generally used as the official one (though not truly official). Some schools take advantage of the ambiguity in this, listing every year that anyone awarded them a championship. Alabama is notorious for this. Their titles have been dissected multiple times. Penn State doesn't do this. They list only 1982 and 1986 as National Championship seasons, as they finished #1 in the AP Poll that season. But getting back to the argument at hand, of course fans whine about their teams titles. It's completely subjective and ambiguous. That's why we need a playoff. But hating JoePa because fans believe Penn State earned more than two titles? No reason for it.

Maybe it's karma for Paterno running up the score on weaker Eastern opponents, thus inflating their records.

Yes, Penn State wasn't awarded titles in the past because he ran up the score. Right. JoePa's just a mean old man who does nothing for anyone. While I don't condone running up the score, in college football it had to be done at times. When you leave your programs fate in the hands of writers and/or coaches who may only look at the box score to determine a teams ability, a large margin of victory comes in handy. Is it bad sportsmanship? From a certain point of view, sure. But, again, this is subjective. Looking back at scores you can see Penn State has destroyed some programs. But whose to say that the second, third and even fourth teams weren't the ones scoring those points? How can the coach be blames if the opponent can't stop backups from running the ball? During the 2005 and 2006 seasons Penn State had sizable leads on many teams. And every time the backups and third stringers were on the field in the fourth (and sometime the third) quarters.

Now "Uncle Mike" says Paterno purposely ran up the score on Rutgers the last time the two teams played, in 1995 at the Meadowlands. Apparently Paterno had the QB throw a TD pass even though Penn State was up 52-34 "late in the game". Here's the whole story. #6 Penn State was beating Rutgers only 24-17 at the half and 38-27 at the end of the third quarter. The over matched Rutgers team was showing tremendous fight and the Nittany Lions had a hard time for almost the entire game. The final score was 59-34, a 25 point spread. That's not very big in college football. In the NFL, yes, that's embarrassing. College? Not so much. Penn State scored 21 points in the 4th, one of which was on a fumble recovery by safety Kim Herring. After QB Wally Richardson hit Bobby Engram to stretch the score to 52-27, PATERNO BENCHED HIS STARTERS. That was with ~ 7 minutes to go in the game. The final TD - the one "Uncle Mike" is so pissed about - was scored by backup QB Mike McQueary, who hit third string flanker Chris Campbell with 58 seconds to go for a 42 yard TD. BACKUPS AND THIRD STRINGERS. With an 18 point lead, not exactly a big margin considering other games that happen every year early in the season.

At this point in his post "Uncle Mike" also starts to refer to Joe Paterno as "Saint Joseph". OK, Penn State fans, how many of you have ever heard JoePa called that? Cause he claims that's what we fans call him. And yet, a simple Google web and image search for "Saint Joseph Paterno" yields nothing related to Penn State or Paterno. How odd.

This is perhaps the best part of "Uncle Mike's" piece. Paterno stealing recruits.

And also for and poaching players from other territories. Two of his best players -- Franco Harris of Mount Holly and Rancocas Valley High, and Kenny Jackson of South River -- were among the many he has poached from New Jersey, and whose first choice could have been Rutgers. He's taken New Yorkers away from Syracuse, New Englanders away from Boston College, and Cheseapeake Valley players away from Maryland, Virginia, Virginia Tech and West Virginia.

Is this jealousy? I hope it is. He can't seriously be made and hate Paterno for being able to recruit, can he? Last I checked every recruit had an option to go to any school they choose, not just the one's close by. Players want to go to schools that give them a chance to play, make the NFL, be on TV, be part of tradition, and/or win games. Penn State offers all those things. Paterno has every right to take players from any state he wants; every team and coach does! Paterno stealing away recruits from outside of PA should not cause hate. Extreme jealousy and envy, surely, but not hate.

Besides these four main points, "Uncle Mike" also says some things (besides the Saint Joseph remark) that are very funny.

Now that Rutgers is a consistent winner, that cowardly old bastard won't play us. Come on, Ratface, you deserve one last lesson in manners before you head off to that great press box in the... core of the Earth.

Where do I even start? OK, let's go with the "consistent winner" thing. Rutgers went 7-5 in 2005, their first season over .500 since 1992 when they went 7-4. In 2006 they had a wonderful season, finishing 11-2 and ranked 12th. In 2007 and 2008 they were 8-5. OK, so they have four straight years of at least seven wins. Who cares? Does winning seven or eight games make you a force in college football? Hardly. A good season in college football is like 9-4 or 10-3. A great one is 11-2. 12 or 13 wins is amazing. 7 or 8 is above average I guess but hardly something to be amazingly proud of. It definitely doesn't make you a "consistent winner".

The "cowardly old bastard won't play" Rutgers? Oh that's right, he must have forgotten that schedules are made 5-10 years in advance. And the fact that Penn State and Rutgers are meeting again in 2014 and 2015. Now the odds of Paterno still coaching then are remote but you can hardly blame Paterno for that (and any scheduling for that matter).

Again, "ratface". Classic.

Yes, Paterno is headed to hell, as he alluded to. He's definitely on my list of people who deserve to be there. Right up there with the Pope (any of them) and these people.

Paterno is eternal. When he finally dies, the Shittany Lions will probably mummify him and turn the Beaver Stadium press box into their own version of Lenin’s Tomb. They already call the stadium “Saint Joe Paterno Cathedral.”

Shittany Lions. Man, this guy is on fire! But again, when has Beaver Stadium EVER been referred to as Saint Joe Paterno Cathedral. OMG. I can't believe it! There's a Google search result.

Click to enlarge.

Oops. Nevermind.

Let me leave you with the way he left his readers.

For longevity, for amount of defeats, for size of defeats, for style of defeats, for arrogance, and, yes, for ugliness (he really does look like a rat), Joe Paterno tops the list. Congratulations, Penn State: You are Number 1. You dirty bastards.

Yes, Joe Paterno certainly is an evil man. He definitely is someone you should focus your hate on.

Seriously, of all the assholes in sports he selected Joe Paterno to top his list. Congratulations, "Uncle Mike", you rate right up there with this clown.