A copy of the playbook
To: Austin Scott
From: Ricky Upton
Though he finished the season as the team's leading rusher with 436 yards and five touchdowns on 100 carries, Scott never seemed to hold on to the starting job. He played in 10 contests, started four, but had just six carries in the team's final three games.
Penn State football coach Joe Paterno still contended Scott and fellow freshman Tony Hunt weren't ready to play as a true freshman.
Study up Austin -- the real test is next fall.
Tickets to the premiere of "Stuck on You"
To: Zack Mills and Michael Robinson
From: Joe Paterno
A laughable movie from the Farrelly Brothers mirrors Penn State's somewhat comical quarterbacking situation. Much in the same way that Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear -- who play Siamese twins in the movie -- can't seem to separate from each other, so, too, do the Lions' quarterbacks find themselves practically joined at the hip.
Paterno seems to fan the flames of a quarterback controversy after each season and said in his Nov. 18 press conference that Robinson would again have a chance to challenge for the starting position next year.
The movie trailer boasts "Hollywood may never be the same as Bob and Walt find fame, love and a new outlook on their unusual but inseparable bond."
Mills and Robinson have the fame thing going for them. Can they find love and a new outlook on their bond or will it just turn into a catastrophic slapstick comedy?
"The Count of Monte Cristo" and Shaggy's hit single "It Wasn't Me"
To: The incoming Penn State freshman class
From: The Nittany Lions' legal defense fund
A book featuring a great jailbreak coupled with the classic defense line "It Wasn't Me," seem to be sadly apropos of a Penn State football team that has had 11 members in some sort of legal trouble in the last year. Wideout Maurice Humphrey joined the long line of Lions with legal woes when he was jailed on several assault charges following a Nov. 23 incident.
That group of players includes soon-to-be-graduated receiver Tony Johnson, fullback Paul Jefferson and guard E.Z. Smith. Jefferson and Smith were suspended from the football team before the season began for separate legal incidents.
Just like the protagonist in the Dumas novel, these Penn State football players are on the cusp of adulthood with seemingly everything in front of them -- so long as they stay out of trouble.
"It Wasn't Me" just doesn't work anymore.
One-way tickets out of State College.
To: The Penn State wide receivers.
From: Kenny Carter.
The wide receivers were the most maligned unit of team at the beginning of the season. And rightfully so. Wideouts dropped pass after pass in the first few games. Ryan Scott has been a member of the Lions for four seasons and has yet to contribute. Throughout the 2003 season, Scott would appear after sitting next to the heaters for the first three-plus quarters. So here it is Ryan, a one-way ticket back to Washington.
Ernie Terrell showed so much promise, but as the season progressed, his playing time regressed, ending when he didn't make the trip to East Lansing. Paterno said he was unsure whether Terrell wanted to play football or run track. Ernie, here is your gift: a free ride on the Blue Loop to the Multi-Sport Complex.
Four tickets on the 50-yard line for the 2004 Rose Bowl
To: Joe Paterno
From: The senior class
Paterno said if a few plays went differently then the Lions could have played for the National Championship or won the Big Ten, meaning at trip to Pasadena.
But it never happened.
Since they feel so bad about their inability to deliever on the field, the seniors, the guys Joe says he loves, have decided to pool their funds and get him some tickets for all his hard work.
They know that's the only way he'll get back to the Grandaddy of them all -- unless Michigan and Ohio State move to the ACC.
Bruce Springsteen's "Waiting on a sunny day" and "Counting on a miracle"
To: The 2004 Penn State football team
From: Collegian football writers
This season was anything but easy for the entire squad.
It is almost four months until the Blue-White game, a lot of time to spend listening to music either in the weight room or in the locker room.
These two songs fit the team perfectly -- the first is a perennial problem in dreary State College, the second, well, did you watch this season?
Then again, Springsteen's "Glory Days,"
might be a little more appropriate for these Nittany Lions.
