 |
 |
 |
|
c) Tell Joe this is his last season and allow him to name his successor. This is the last year of Paterno's current contract.
| Advertisement |
|||
| |||
d) Tell Joe this is his last season and start on the road to hiring a new head coach from the outside.
If you chose d) get ready for e) all hell to break loose.
Penn State hasn't ceased to be competitive, far from it. In what looks literally like a death race to the Division I-A wins record, Paterno has pulled within one of Florida State's Bobby Bowden (373-372).
"I kid them," Georgia legend Vince Dooley said. "When they wake up in the morning, the first thing they turn to is the obituaries. That may settle it between them. I think they're driving each other." The difference is, Florida State has a plan with Fisher taking over supposedly within three years. Penn State has an open-ended "situation" with Paterno headed into that final season of his contract. If the Nittany Lions go to a bowl game their coach will have turned 82.
Spanier seems cool to the subject of succession. CBSSports.com asked him if he had a reaction to what other schools were doing with coaching designates.
"I am not familiar with the specific details of other schools' plans," Spanier said via e-mail. "although I have an awareness that many different approaches are being used."
If Spanier indeed wants to hire from outside, it probably means a house cleaning of the current staff. Rutgers' Greg Schiano has a contract through 2016. The former Penn State assistant is known to be willing to crawl to State College to take the job. Schiano must sustain the momentum he created during Rutgers' miracle 2006 season. The Scarlet Knights dropped from 11-2 to 8-5 last season.
Al Golden, another former JoePa assistant, is also a rising star. His name came up not only at Penn State, but at UCLA. Golden, 38, obviously is impressing people but he is 5-19 in two seasons at Temple.
What complicates matters is that Paterno, at least publicly, still is sharp. He stunned the recruiting world by basically getting No. 1 prospect Terrelle Pryor to delay his decision past signing day. But Pryor's high school coach Ray Reitz rocked some worlds himself recently when he said if assistant Tom Bradley were the head coach, the player would have signed with Penn State by now.
Paterno has long favored Bradley, or another member of his staff, as a successor. That's great news for Bradley. The bad news: The administration might not necessarily agree and even if it did Paterno wants a new contract.
In other words, e) awaits.
