He was also 72 years old.
Yep,
Good post.
Yeah it’s a crapshoot, right? I just hope that we don’t go with Rhule, it just says too many of the wrong things about priorities and where the program can actually go.
Really I’ll give anyone a chance but I do think that the upside is higher for everyone else. I don’t really think the downside is lower tbh.
We are talking about hiring a new, coach at near peak. Not Joe at end of his career. In his prime, he handled O$U just fine.
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He has an overall losing record against them - prime or no prime. It's not like you can cherry pick and expect the next guy to come in and go 50/50 with what is the equivalent of the death star of college football
I expect to beat Ohio State sometimes. Not every year, but sometimes. 1/3 of the time? 1/4? Yeah.
Joe also beat Ohio State when they were really good at times too. Ohio State, great program, but has exactly 1 unbeaten season since 2002. Michigan has 4 in a row on them. Not unreasonable to expect wins against them.
I would have no problem with Matt Rhule. I love the guy and he is Penn State family. He will win this game over USC and secure the job.
He didn’t win at other stops. Against any squad with a pulse. Franklin couldn’t beat Top 5. Rhule can’t beat Top 25.
If it was going to be Urban, wouldn’t that have already happened?
True, but not the reason he left. He is not sitting on a beach drinking umbrella drinks with his wife. He is front and center of college football, arguably with an even bigger megaphone. He just could not stomach pandering to entitled recruits or pretend to fawn all over them to play football. Not his jam.
The timing of when Saban left coaching suggests he's done with it. Not so much for Meyer. He may not be interested in Penn State, but the way he left coaching does not suggest that he is opposed to ever coaching again.
No way does Pat Kraft unleash the hell of firing James Franklin 5 games into a season for “program stagnancy” and hire his Asst Head Coach to replace him.
Kraft may as well hand in his resignation too if that were to happen. The only way he makes this move is for an outside hire.
Meyer didn’t leave, he was told to leave.
Why didn’t he try to get the Oregon job? Or Alabama? Or Texas A&M? Or maybe he did and AD’s are significantly less interested in hiring him than message board posters are
I cant wait til we hire rule and then success with honor can come back and the statue can come back and we can recruit kids from berwick and the WPIAL can hate us again and we can clean the stadium if the players get in a fight. It will be awesome man. Going 6-5 is so much fun as long as you live in the 80's.
That's plausible. Meyer's family may have also stepped in. Say his wife who could be worried about his wandering eye on the road.
I honestly think that was a big part of it, both health wise and fidelity wise. I bet his wife told him ‘no more coaching or I’m gone’That's plausible. Meyer's family may have also stepped in. Say his wife who could be worried about his wandering eye on the road.
Not me. I think he has what it takes. My only concern is that his boss micromanages him. So, I wonder is it Hartline or is it Day that makes that offense go.
Rhule same thing IMO. I think selling Rhule to the fan base that booed Franklin into being fired will be a very tough sell I hope. Kraft has an email phone number and an office. Make your wishes known.
The curse of Joe Paterno, he is still holding the program hostage. You don't hire Jimmy Carter expecting Ronald Reagan results, yet the dumbass fanbase accepted exactly that 12 years ago. Didn't learn a dam thing from their error in judgement, that is why they get so pissed off with continued criticism of BGJ - a constant reminder of how stupid they were to swallow his BS.
The sentiment that Joe was regularly beating Ohio State is not based on reality, unfortunately.
Joe's record vs Ohio State was 8-14 overall. When Ohio State was ranked top 5 he was 0-9. His record for the balance of the games when playing a Ohio State team not in the top 5 was 8-5. Some of those wins were also against John Cooper coached teams.
Compare that to Franklin, who's record vs Ohio State is 1-10. Certainly not great and not trying to rationalize it as good by any means.
But Franklin played a top 5 Ohio State team 9 of 11 times, and won just once, the blocked field goal win vs #2 Ohio State.
Franklin only faced a non top 5 Ohio State team 2 times and lost both games.
Frankly, I'd argue that Joe's record vs Michigan was far worse than vs Ohio State. Joe's record vs Michigan was 6-10 and lost 9 in a row, and 3 of the 6 wins were against Rich Rod's squads. The majority of Michigan's teams that Joe faced were not top 10 teams. Only 3 times did Penn State face a top 10 Michigan team, winning 1 and losing 2. Joe lost 8 times to a lower ranked Michigan team
Franklin has a 3-7 record vs Michigan, losing all 6 games to a Michigan top 15 team. Like Joe, Franklin's success vs Michigan came when playing less regarded Michigan teams ranked from 16 and beyond, winning 3 and losing 1.
It feels like Selective memory for fan's to tout our "winning regularly" over Ohio State and Michigan, when the wins often came against John Cooper and Rich Rod coached teams, and not against Tressell, Myers, Carr and Harbaugh coached teams. Franklin faced far superior Ohio State teams than Joe did, and was only ranked higher than Ohio State 2 x's (#2 vs #6 in 2017 and #3 vs #4 last year)
Will a change in coach change the success rate vs Ohio State? It is possible, but until the talent at both schools is on equal footing I don't think winning regularly with inferior talent is a legitimate ask. Ohio State's top 10 recruiting year after year, supplemented by adding top notch Portal Talent (especially at QB) gives them a massive edge over Penn State
Noble sentiment, but even 100,000 emails aren't outweighing the voices of the big donors that have ponied up the money for it.
I certainly can cherry pick a comparison of a coach at his peak vs one at end of long career. Joe went into Columbus multiple times and beat highly ranked O$U teams. And walloped them in a major bowl on neutral turf.
Franklin? Nada. If he would have won some winnable O$U games, O$U would not be a “Deathstar.”
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It's foolish to compare beating OSU then versus now. Then it was an even playing field, now not even close. You couldn't just go out and buy a new QB every year like teams do now.
Ohio State lost to Penn State by 7 and Texas by 3 in 2005.
They beat:
#21 Iowa 31-6
#16 Mich St 35-24
#25 Northwestern 48-7
#17 Michigan 25-21
#5 Notre Dame 34-20
That team also had a Heisman Trophy Winner, a Lombardi Award Winner, and finished #4. It was every bit the machine the more modern teams were. Just because they lost to 2 teams similarly stacked, it doesn't take away how they they were.
That's reality.
Here’s my take on Rhule. If he gets the job, I’ll root for him. If, as people are saying, he’s another Franklin I will root for him and hope he can at least win more big games. Franklin was fine except for the inability to beat the top teams until this year when he couldn’t beat anybody.
Also, would add that Michigan has absolutely not out recruited Penn State. Yet Michigan:
A. Beats Penn State regularly (the last 3 times)
B. Beats Ohio State regularly
It feels like it is a bit of a misnomer that you have to recruit better to beat a school sometimes. You don't, proven out by Michigan's recent ownership of a team it recruits similarly to and a team it doesn't recruit nearly as well as.
Not unreasonable to expect PSU to beat Ohio State sometimes. Not every year, not every other year, but at least once every 4 years.
FiFY
Look....maybe it didn't have much impact, but you must asterisk UMs accomplishments during the sign stealing years
Rhule's career record is 65-58.
This is his 10th year coaching (coaching college, that is ... he was a complete disaster in the pros), and he has 6 seasons above .500 (including this one) ... and 2 of those were 7-6. He was 1-5 against top-25 ranked squads with Temple (the 1 win coming against an East Carolina squad that wasn't close to being ranked thereafter). He was 0-8 against top-25 ranked squads with Baylor, including 0-3 in his "good" season that got him the job with the Panthers. He's 0-7 against top-25 ranked squads with Nebraska. So, he's 1-20 against teams ranked in the top 25 when he played them, with his lone win coming against some pretender G5 squad that ended up with 5 losses on the season, and was ranked 21 when they played them.
Folks have tried to make him seem better by claiming he turned programs around, but he really just brought them back to close to where they were very recently in 2 of those 3 stops, and his coaching years actually represented a nadir (before the rebound) for those squads.
Joe was 8-14 against Ohio State. And for most of that time, they were not the juggernaut they are now.
Our win over them in ‘05 was great, no doubt. As was ‘94 and ‘08. Yes, Joe was able to beat them a bit more.
But let’s not forget other Paterno-era games:
L 24-6
L 38-7
L 28-9
L 45-6
L 28-6
L 37-17
L 24-7
L 38-14
And it’s a fact that OSU was better in the Franklin era than in the Paterno era.
OSU Final AP rank in Franklin’s 11 years:
Top 10: 11/11
Top 5: 8/11
OSU final AP rank in Paterno’s 18 years (‘93-‘10):
Top 10: 11/18
Top 5: 9/18
any UFOs spotted?
Like I said, I’ll support him if he gets the job. I supported Franklin up until the UCLA game.
Urban Meyer is what we need. Winning is what it's all about. Forget everything else. The media hates PSU anyway, as does many fans nationwide.