JCoz wrote:Yeah they can keep believing that if they want, but if they are deeply connected they also know that the Sandusky scandal had been in the undercurrent for a long time before he the indictments started rolling out. There are things in print from March and April talking about that situation coming to a head, and that wasn't the first PSU people had heard about it. To say that they had him wrapped up prior to the Sandusky scandal breaking would be implying that that whole thing just came right out of left field less than 60 days ago, which is factually incorrect.
Regardless its moot at this point. He's here and O'Brien is there.
It is funny how the deluded PSU fan base continued until a couple days ago...when it became obvious that O'Brien was the target of the moment...to think that they were going to get Nick Saban, or some other "home run" hire.
Not only was the PSU thing brewing just below the surface for several months (years?) before it broke, but we have many (unsourced) reports that Meyer had made his availability and interest known to OSU through back channels as early as last spring, when the OSU Board was grappling with what to do about JT. Doesn't sound like a guy who was "wrapped up" to anyone else.
I'm sure you've seen the former PSU players today expressing their disappointment (anger...in the case of LaVar Arrington) about the choice of O'Brien. It appears to center more about Bradley, or some other PSU man not getting the job. JB's right that staying internal was not a viable option for them. They can live with Arrington being upset. What they couldn't live with was the other 99.9999% of the country being appalled that they didn't completely clean house. Imagine the media shitstorm that rightly would have ensued if Bradley had gotten the nod.
What was completely classless though, was the way they hung Bradley out to dry...not even giving him the courtesy of a call yesterday to tell him they had made their decision.
I understand JB's criticism of the choice...though it may be too early to assume that the guy they hired can't be the healer of the program that it needs. Of course they offered the job to numerous others that they thought would be that guy...Dungy among others. What they needed in the end was somebody to say yes, so they could get on with it. I'm not ready to assume that "they don't get it"...just because they weren't able to attract their first, second, third or fourth choice into accepting the job.
And I'm not minimizing the devastation to the program when I point out that they did have to give some weight to getting a guy who can get results on the field for them, as opposed to someone who would be more of a figurehead "healer" for however long. In Jerry Sandusky, we're talking about a monster and a criminal of the first order, but one who had not had an active role in the football program for 12 years before this broke.
From the start, the people who thought the way to handle this was to suspend the playing of football at Penn State...or to somehow make it less important...or relevant for some period of time...may have been right...but they were certainly unrealistic. The reason this devastates the PSU community is because PSU football is so important to the whole community. Taking it away...or telling people it shouldn't be as important to them as it is, isn't likely to be seen as "healing", IMO.
