TruffleShuffle

Lucky they're in a fairly easy block. They've still got supposedly easy wins over Kazakhstan and Slovakia to come (although the Slovaks did beat Russia today). Slovakia is probably as good as the USA if not better. Gaborik, Demitra, Marian Hossa, Bondra and Satan are good scorers, and Chara and Visnovsky are strong defensemen. Main question is how good their goalie is.

Ice dancing is not a sport

Guess Steelers fans have no room to bitch about the officiating (Colts game) any more. I saw at least 5 holds on Pitt worse than the one committed by Locklear... instead it goes from Seattle at the 1 yard line to Seattle almost out of field goal range. Terrible. Then again, it wouldn't be right to have a football game in Michigan and have one team not get screwed by the refs.

Seattle 98 Pittsburgh 2

I wouldn't wear a "cardinals suck" shirt because they don't. I hate them and I hate the Yankees, but they are good teams. Unfortunately, as Cub fans, there are very few teams we can look down upon and call "sucky." If I wore a shirt that had anything to do with the Cardinals, it would just be a white t-shirt with an image of the "Get a brain morans!" guy on the front of it.

Derwood and sethuel, you guys will probably want to read this, and some of the rest of you may enjoy it as well. The staff at the PSU scout.com site contacted one of the committed recruits and, since he planned on becoming a communications/journalism major, asked him if he was interested in writing a story about the recruiting process through his eyes. I guess they asked him about it on LOI day and within less than 24 hours he had written a long story. They just made very minor edits to the piece before posting on the website. I have to say that it's a unique look at the process, and a good read as well. The kid seems very grounded and understood that he needed a place where he could succeed as a football player, student and person. He writes very well too, and has great enthusiasm to play for Penn State. I think he will be a team leader whether he becomes a star or turns out to be a backup all four years. BTW, the second part of the article is here.

This time of year, rants or social. During the year it can be any of the threads, but probably most often game threads (if game is going on) or minor leagues. I was surprised that transactions is the overwhelming choice. Personally, I can't really take transactions. About a quarter of the threads are trade proposals that are unrealistically good for the Cubs, and half the threads are good trade proposals that the Cubs would never consider because they're incompetent. Rather than get my hopes up that the Cubs will (insert intelligent personnel move here), I just stay away.

17 or 18 year-old kids don't even know who Red Grange, Dick Butkus and Ray Nietschke are. The question is a logical one. Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota have all been much better than Illinois, yet Illinois ranked 4th in the Rivals recruiting tally behind PSU, O$U and UM. I would not have expected this kind of class to commit to a school that was so uncompetitive last year either. But as has been noted before, rankings are not gospel. Penn State signed a three star linebacker in 2003 who chose PSU over Iowa, Northwestern, Pitt, BC, Purdue and Wisconsin. No offer from O$U, Michigan, Miami, USC, LSU, Oklahoma or any of the other power schools that were recruiting nationwide. Three years later and Paul Posluszny is the Butkus award winner for top LB and Bednarik Award winner for top defensive player.

Not a big surprise... they were a program sliding down a hill before Weis got there. Even last year when he was hired, they couldn't do much to bring in a good recruiting class. One, he was hired late, and two, he was getting ready for the Super Bowl. He couldn't put all his energy into bringing in big time recruits with his present employer needing him for what was a fairly important game. Still, it's no surprise that ND and PSU have big time recruiting classes this year. They are two of the big-name schools in college football. While they slumped in recent years, they still have their own respective mystiques, and for young kids who grew up interested in football, it is hard to turn away from a prestigious program that is gathering a lot of steam.

Entertaining SI piece on some huge high school stars turned recruiting busts. I'm not sure who the biggest bust is... maybe Ronald Curry since he was supposed to be incredible at football and basketball, and wasn't really that hot at either one. I remember the hype around Kendra was huge too, and he did next to nothing.

Sports Pickle discusses Miami's class... :lol:

Oh yeah... that's why he opened up his recruiting after originally committing to Arkansas. He was basically begging for an official visit and an offer from ND. When he saw that it wasn't going to happen because ND already had 2 commits at QB, he recommitted to Arkansas. That's a shame that Weis has a lot of respect for Lemming... most other people do not :lol:

Not sure why McCoy waited so long... seemed everyone already knew he was going to OU but he held off on announcing until today. From everything I have heard, he should be a very good player. Not all that exciting of a signing day for PSU with 24 guys coming into the day as solid verbals. The only real drama was related to Hazelton, but I think he will be going to USC.... to me it looks like his dad really wants him at PSU, but VH's heart is set on USC. Best of luck to him. In any case, PSU signed the top class in the Big Ten and what is very close to a top 5 class nationally. I think that the biggest needs in this year's class were addressed - 2 good QB recruits, 2 good HB, 5 OL, 8 DL and the top CB recruit in the country. Hazelton would've been nice, but with PSU's top 3 receivers (Williams, Butler, Norwood) all having 3 years of eligibility left and another top 5 receiver (Bell) already signed, he wasn't a need. Both the people on Rivals and on Scout say this is one of Paterno's top three classes ever, ranking up there with the Matt Millen class and the one with Ki-Jana Carter.

Nah, it wouldn't be classless enough to do it now. Wait until he has achieved icon status in the city, and then do it.

Sorry, no teams below the Mason-Dixon line allowed :wink: Hell, Bloomngton, IN is south of the Mason-Dixon line, isn't it ?? Nope, that far west the Ohio River serves as the Mason-Dixon line.

10: Rice 9: Wake Forest, Northwestern, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Army, Navy 8: Duke, SMU, Tulane, Air Force, UCLA 7: Georgia Tech, Syracuse, Michigan, Penn State, Texas, Missouri, Buffalo, Miami (Ohio), Georgia, Notre Dame Certainly some interesting names already. Cal was rated just a 6. USC was a 3. I would think they're missing something when it came to Texas. Yeah, I had the same reaction about Texas. It's a pretty good school academically when it comes to the average undergrad, but they have been known to have some real academic disasters on their team. I was surprised to see Florida State and Ohio State not in negative numbers.

The key word above is "supposedly," as in "something I read secondhand on a message board on in an article by some disgruntled sportswriter." First of all, he was still being recruited by Maryland. They invited him to the basketball game and he went. He wore a Maryland jersey because he grew up in Maryland, has lived there his whole life, and has been a Terps basketball fan his whole life. While I have seen some Maryland message board people say they heard he re-confirmed his commitment, there hasn't been anything official. Many Maryland fans have said that he invited the Fridge and his wife to attend the ceremony. This is not true because coaches are not allowed to attend the announcement. Maybe they asked him if she could attend and he didn't say no... but it's a free country and she can do what she wants. All I'm saying is that, think about it logically and ask yourself why he would recommit to a school and lead them on three days before screwing them over. This is a school he has been a fan of for a long time, and a coach with whom he had a good relationship, mind you... there was no incentive for him to try to embarrass Maryland and coach Friedgen. One of the editors on the PSU board wrote this about him, which I hope you will take the time to read: You said it yourself... that cannot be done legally. If so, it is a booster of a school giving special favors to a recruit as an incentive to get him to attend that school, which would result in Van Pelt having no future association with Maryland, and Logan-El either losing his eligibility or being suspended for a time. I doubt either party is stupid enough to go for that. Also, ESPNZone in Baltimore has hosted other announcements before... it is an easy way for ESPN to televise the announcement without having to move their equipment elsewhere. Anyway, if Maryland fans want to think of him as a classless boor who wanted to humiliate their program, so be it. During the whole recruiting process, from reading articles about him on Scout and Rivals, I always got the impression that he was very deliberate and measured about his decision-making process. He seemd a lot more considerate than a lot of kids who make a decision and then start to doubt it a few days later. He also seemed to talk more about academics, quality of department in what he wants to study, player-to-player relationships, and player-to-coach relationships than most of the other blue chip recruits that I read about. I would agree that some kids are self-centered boobs, but I just don't agree about Logan-El. I have read a lot about this over the past few days. I think that, just like the sad situation in West Virginia where it was reported that all but 1 miner survived and this turned out to be terribly wrong, that some bad information reached certain sources and just spread like wildfire. Hopefully most people will choose to judge him on the character that he shows at Penn State, and not on what they read on a message board during his recruiting process.

link On top of this, Tayler, Mybrick, and Logan-Els parents were reported to have been yelling F-Maryland after he announced. (no link, so if its not true, please let me know. I saw it posted on a couple different message boards, so I apologize if it is wrong) Penn State fans, were he not committing to PSU, would you be saying this is a classless act by this kid, the way he announced and all? No, because pretty much all of the accounts you have heard are wrong. Nobody yelled "F Maryland" - someone yelled "Traitor" at Logan-El and his mom yelled "Hater" back at them. You'll also want to consider that the woman who wrote the Baltimore Sun article used to cover PSU at the Centre Daily Times in State College and is known to have written very anti-PSU pieces there as well. And, much of the stuff you have read on message boards is by bitter Maryland fans. Here's an account written by a moderator on the PSU board who was in attendance: Plus, make sure you watch the full clip of the announcement before you judge him. I was very surprised by Maryland fans saying that he deliberately tried to make them look bad. He said that he was going through his elimination process, and started with the three schools and held up the Penn State hat last. Watch his hands... does it really look like he is throwing hats or slamming them down to the ground? They forgot to mention in that clearly one-sided article that he also dropped the Penn State hat on the ground so that he could hold up the picture of him and JoePa... I guess the dropping of the PSU hat was not disrespectful though. Turn up the volume and try to hear people yelling "F*** Maryland"... I can assure you that you won't because it didn't happen. Seriously, it's sad that some people get so overzealous about this that they feel the need to drag an 18 year old kid's name through the mud. If he did what Kevin Jones did on his announcement to VTech - pull out a PSU hat just to throw it aside and take off a jacket, showing that he was wearing a VT jersey - that is classless. Getting up on a stool, saying some nice words about every program that recruited him, and then making the choice is not classless. Seriously, if wearing a red tie has Maryland fans all fired up, then they really need something better to worry about. I'll be interested to hear what you think of him after you watch the video.

There is more to consider here than ahletics... the Big Ten also has pretty good academic schools and very strong research schools... I believe at least 8 Big Ten schools each engage in over a billion dollars of research per year. So, I'm not sure where Pitt and Syracuse stand in those regards.

http://www.dropshots.com/photos/40683/20060124/173624.jpg ALE showed this pic of him and JoePa as he made his announcement... needless to say, the OL is just a bit larger :lol:

Same here my friend... I slept about 4 hours and then couldn't sleep between the excitement about the Devlin commitment and the upcoming announcments by Taylor and Logan-El. Even the long-time fans on the PSU scout.com message board are saying this is one of the best classes they've ever seen. They had some pretty average years recruiting-wise due to the struggles the past few years, but now that they had such a strong year last year and had great support from the fans (every single recruit that attended the Ohio State game chose PSU), they have become one of the fashionable choices. With a class like this coming in and a good team already in place, I'm confident that we won't be seeing any more losing records in the next few years.

Did you hear anything about Derrick Williams, Justin Norwood or Justin King this year? If they are good enough to play, they will play. You'll rarely see true freshmen play on the offensive line though. At least 2-3 true freshmen will get playing time on the DL though, due to losses to the NFL. I think their 5* recruit, AJ Wallace, will get a decent amount of playing time in the secondary with all 4 starters being seniors last year. BTW, this makes 8 commits from Maryland, 7 of whom are 4 or 5 stars in the Rivals rankings. One 5*, thirteen 4* and eight 3*. Definitely a top 5 class nationally now with the two 4* commits today. If Hazelton defects from USC I will just about pass out.

Well, after rampant speculation the last two days that Antonio Logan-El would commit to Maryland this afternoon, he announced he would attend the University of ... Penn State! (yeah I know it's Penn State University, but recruits do that to fool people, build suspense, etc.) Philip Taylor will likely commit to PSU within the next hour... this recruiting season for Penn State feels like when I'm playing NCAA football on PS2 and I get every top prospect that I target. Simply phenomenal.

Not really... college football is a business. If Northwestern lost their star QB recruit, you can bet they'd go looking for another recruit and probably try to steal one from a MAC or CUSA school.

I'll take 10 out of the top 100 (6 in top 50) for year 1 of Weis recruiting :) They have 6 out of the Rivals top 100 and 6 out of the Scout top 100... I think those are both more credible sources, since Lemming is known to be a Notre Dame fan, which skews his rankings. Also, it is now official... 4 star QB and top 10 QB (nationally) Pat Devlin has decommitted from Miami and will be attending PSU. Huge pickup late in the game... next up is one of the top OL prospects, Antonio Logan-El, announcing today, followed by a mammoth DL, Phillip Taylor. I think PSU could use Logan-El more, but he's probably about a 60% shot to go to Maryland. Taylor, according to many, has already verballed to PSU, so I'd put him at about 90% to PSU over Maryland.