Penn State Stuck: Say It Ain't So Joe!

If the old man is the odd man out, the outcry for a playoff in college football will be overwhelming.

But the Big 10, PAC 10, the old boys of the Bowls, the networks, and the politicos that crave bowl tourism dollars do not care.

Never have, never will.

Don't blame Joe. He has been calling for a NCAA football playoff for years. The often spouted hypocrisy that a playoff would interfere with the players' academics is so phony its laughable. And Joe knows it.

Division I-AA, II, and III football programs all do the playoff dance and most of those guys actually attend classes. No, it's big time sports and network contracts that road block a NCAA playoff. It's all about the dollars. It's all about the greed.

But back to Joe and his leap frogged Lions. The Texas Tech Red Raiders leaped over Joe's Penn State Nittany Lions in the BCS poll. Pennsylvania will howl this week because the Lions stayed stuck at number three while Red Raiders sailed from six to two.

A computer is only as good as its human fed data but a lot of the stiff arming of the Lions likely stems from the perceived weakness of the Big 10. The Big Ten is bad this year, but that does not mean Penn State isn't good.

Just because the Michigan Wolverines are in meltdown, the Wisconsin Badgers are bad, the Purdue Boilermakers offense retired a few months before Coach Joe Tiller, and the Ohio State Buckeyes have been whipped by the last three quality opponents they faced doesn't mean Paterno's boys are a badder bunch then the Texas Tech Red Raiders.

No, Joe Paterno has one of his trademark quietly good teams. Not a lot of flash but a lot of quality and the ability to play all facets of the game, and play them well. The kind of team that beat Jimmy Johnson's star studded, highly favored Hurricanes back in 1987.

Maybe old Jimmy forgot that game when he was bragging up the Big 12 on the BCS show. Or maybe Jimmy just wants to catch the red eye back to his yacht, Three Rings,  anchored off Key West.

Jimmy, like Joe, knows it should only be settled on the field. But how does the BCS determine that the number six is suddenly better then the number three? 

By beating the number one Texas Longhorns? But Penn State battered the Oregon State Beavers who then beat down the the then number one USC Trojans?

And a motivated fan can argue point counter point for hours.

Torture numbers and they'll confess to anything you say, and these numbers will be given the Inquisition every day by every fan but they will sort out somehow eventually. But never as neatly, nor as fun, as a playoff would.

Paterno won't see a playoff while he coaches the Nittany Lions. But if he complains this week about the lack of a playoff cut the old boy some slack. After all the first programmable computer, the Z1 created by the German Konrad Zusein, was only born in 1936.

Joe was already 10 years old then and studying Sid Luckman. Studying Sid Luckman as a single wing tailback at Columbia before he became a Chicago Bear.

That's old school. Joe predates computers. Not just the BCS...all computers.

BCS rule number 118. If the coach has been watching football longer then computers exist he gets ties.

Joe knows he won't need help with a tie though. Due to the Big Ten's lack of title game and Penn State's rather easy final run, the Iowa Hawkeyes, Indiana Hoosiers, and Michigan State Spartans the Nits should end undefeated.

Texas Tech has to conquer the state of Oklahoma, the Cowboys and the Sooners. then face the Missouri Tigers in the Big 12 title game.

The Alabama Crimson Tide have some Tigers to tame. The nasty LSU and Auburn variety with the Mississippi Bulldogs trying to bite them in between. Then, if they survive those animal attacks, the Tide has to wrestling the Florida Gators who are playing as good as anyone right now.

So Joe may complain about the new finagled computers figuring out football field things but likely the old man won't be the odd man out.

The old man will be out for a National title game one more time. And he will be an underdog again, but at least he won't be lined up over a computer.

Old Joe will face a high Crimson Tide again, or maybe a Gator, or a Red Raider.

At least lets hope so.

An exciting football season should not end in a BCS boondoggle.

Neither should a legendary coaching career.