The spring football season begins today, as players and coaches take to the practice field for the first time in the build up to the April 19 Blue-White game.

Of course, the news media are not allowed to attend practices. However, players and Joe Paterno are scheduled to be available later in the week. We will report back when we know who will be around to speak with us hacks.

Also, we wanted to let you know that by the end of the week there will likely be a new trio of Collegian reporters taking over the beat. It's just the natural attrition of the newspaper's football coverage. Time is almost up for Corey, Kevin and I, who will no longer inhabit this space. But we're sure that the incoming group will do an outstanding job as they get acclimated to life with the Lions this spring and then move into the fall.

We will miss our time around the team, and, of course, all the readers who have never been afraid to let us know how they feel about Penn State football (and all of our articles).

-- Mark

The University of Michigan is taking a few serious blows to its reputation.

In a four-day series, the Ann Arbor News is running an investigative story each day about the academic fraud of Michigan's student-athletes. Today is Day 2 of 4.

Some highlights of the investigative piece so far include:

* Professor John Hagen was used as a "safety net" for student-athletes, and academic advisors often steered athletes his way. In 2005, two football players added his class March 18 -- well after the add/drop period ended.

* Hagen's four-credit independent study classes sometimes met for just 15 minutes every other week. Student-athletes from every team except cross country and women's water polo took at least one class with the professor.

* Most professors teach 2-3 independent study courses a semester. Hagen taught as many as 45.

* Michigan reserved nearly half of its freshman kinesiology class slots for athletes

* After kinesiology became a harder major in 2002, 38 of 46 football players enrolled in the major transferred to "general studies" -- basically a joke major.

* General studies degrees accounted for just 1.6 percent of all degrees given out last year. Some 25 percent of athletes declared an intention to pursue that same major last fall.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's plenty more where that came from -- current professors, former teachers, academic advisors, etc. all back it up.

"A lot of these kids, their reading levels couldn't have been higher than sixth grade, seventh grade," said Jay Basten, a full-time Michigan kinesiology lecturer. "I had one guy ask me what the word 'bureaucracy' meant, and how to sound it out. I was thinking: 'How do they survive?' I don't know."

The stories for each day can be found here:
http://www.mlive.com/wolverines/academics/