[Boscoe]

Please paste this...

http://es.pn/fsgWs5

Muchas gracias

points will be provided.

[keenecharger21]

joe paterno going out with a bang

he has no qb yet looks like hes going to be getting some reps lol

[Iced]

http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/...**/5512270.png

Go to the link and click on the image so that it gets magnified.

[stealthyburrito]

no need for points bub

Here is this week's mailbag:


From @JohnTCpsu: What will it take for the Penn State Nittany Lions to win the Big Ten?


The Big Ten race is going to be more fascinating this year than it's been in a long time. Some of that is to due to the uncertainty surrounding the Ohio State Buckeyes heading into the season, stemming not only from the five-game suspension of five key players, including star quarterback Terrelle Pryor, but also the status of coach Jim Tressel as the program awaits the word of the NCAA's Committee on Infractions. OSU has won or tied for first in the Big Ten six consecutive seasons, so obviously it plays a key role in the conference race. But on top of that, you have the Wisconsin Badgers and Iowa Hawkeyes having to replace solid starting QBs and a bunch of outstanding linemen, the arrival of a powerful Nebraska Cornhuskers team and the upswing of Penn State and the Michigan Wolverines.


I expect both the Nittany Lions and Wolverines to be much improved in 2011, but the real question is how much.


PSU first needs to figure out who will be leading the offense, as the coaches decide between Rob Bolden and Matt McGloin. Joe Paterno raved about Bolden's ability, but it's hard to dismiss McGloin's poise and presence in sparking the team. I believe they can have a big year with either player under center. In 6-foot-5 wide receiver Derek Moye, the Penn State QB will have one of the best wideouts in the Big Ten at his disposal. Moye caught eight TDs in PSU's last eight games.


They need Silas Redd Jr., the speedy rising sophomore tailback, to blossom into a star. He looks like he can be a big-time future NFL talent. Evan Royster, who was a very solid, productive back, is gone. Now we need to see if Redd is ready to get 18 to 25 carries a game in Big Ten play. Expect Brandon Beachum, who missed last year, to also be effective in the run game. Up front, I'm sure they'll miss Stefen Wisniewski, who was their rock, but word is the light has finally come on for massive lineman Johnnie Troutman, and he can be a real factor for them.


One other key for the offense: Whenever the Nittany Lions have had a really good running game, they've had a big, formidable tight end (or tight ends) sealing the edge. They should have that this season because their tight ends are pretty massive.


On defense, they can get back to looking like a Penn State defense with standout linebacking play, but only if some of the young talent that emerged this spring (LB Khairi Fortt, CB Mike Wallace and DE Kyle Baublitz) can make an impact in the fall.


Losing defensive end Pete Massaro with a knee injury for the spring is a hefty blow, but you still have Devon Still as a good anchor, and longtime defensive line coach Larry Johnson has always been very adept at cranking out good fronts loaded with difference-makers.


Last year's PSU team was extremely young, but this group now has a lot of seasoning. I read a stat somewhere that said the Lions return 22 players who made at least three starts last year. That's a good base to build on. The bad news is the schedule is not friendly at all. After a cupcake opener against Indiana State, the Nittany Lions get a visit from an Alabama Crimson Tide team that figures to be a preseason top-five squad. After that things settle down, since they have only two road trips in their first seven games, and those are to play the Temple Owls (which will be a de facto PSU home crowd) and Indiana. But then there's a nasty final three games, at home against Nebraska and then road games at Ohio State and Wisconsin.


One Penn State insider I really trust told me that if the Nittany Lions can be 8-1 going into the Nebraska game and have no controversy at the quarterback position, they'll have a realistic shot to win the league. The earlier the staff settles on its QB choice, the less chance there will be for division in the locker room. My source told me there were two different camps in the locker room last year. One guy has to emerge and put all that stuff to rest.



From @mjhhawk: Can the Texas A&M Aggies win it all?


I'd say they are a long shot at best. I had them 14th in the College Football Live poll I submitted recently. I like the improvements defensive coordinator Tim DeRuyter has made with his 3-4 scheme, although it'll be tough to replace Von Miller. He gave everyone fits as they prepared a game plan for A&M. I also really like the firepower the Aggies have on offense with Cyrus Gray and Christine Michael to go with Jeff Fuller, Ryan Swope and Uzoma Nwachukwu. Ryan Tannehill gave the team a huge spark when he took over at QB. I'm eager to see what he can do with those weapons and a much more experienced offensive line (104th in sacks allowed last year) in 2011.


Unfortunately, the Big 12 has two other teams that may have even more firepower on offense in the Oklahoma Sooners and Oklahoma State Cowboys, and the week after the Aggies play the Cowboys they play a loaded Arkansas Razorbacks team in Arlington, Texas. That's three top-15 tests for the Aggies and we haven't even mentioned the archrival Texas Longhorns, who figure to be improved. I could see the Aggies winning two of those games, but probably not three. They also have to go to Lubbock to play the Texas Tech Red Raiders right after the double of OSU and Arkansas.


I am very curious to see what DeRuyter does with this D now. As dramatically improved as they were last season, they still allowed more than 33 points per game in their four losses.


From @crowtidecrow: Who do you pick: Bama's defense with an inexperienced QB, or the LSU Tigers' D with an experienced QB?


Well put. Bama's defense was so young last year and a lot of us are expecting significant improvement this fall, whereas another year of experience doesn't seem to be fostering the same type of confidence in Jordan Jefferson. Although perhaps that's due to the fact Jefferson had already been a starter coming into 2010. I lean to the Tide this year because they have a more proven ground game option in Trent Richardson, and because they get to host the head-to-head contest between the two.

From @jw_209: So, Tyler Bray went 5-of-30 in the spring game. Thoughts on this kid? Seems like it'll be feast or famine each Saturday this fall.


[+] Enlarge AP Photo/Wade PayneTennessee quarterback Tyler Bray has a lot of room to develop.




Don't put too much stock in spring game stats. It's easy for people, including those of us in the media, to get carried away there.


I've been high on Bray since I first noticed him at the EA Sports Elite 11 QB camp back when he really only had an offer from the San Diego State Aztecs (see the second note in this blog post).


Bray was one of the true bright spots for the Tennessee Volunteers last year, throwing 18 touchdowns compared to 10 interceptions. He's got all the tools to be a great QB, but he's still young. He's going to be streaky.


It's usually feast or famine with young QBs in an offense that throws the ball a lot, and because the Vols had such a young offensive line last season, they threw it a lot. Bray is not afraid to take chances, which only adds to this feast-or-famine dynamic. Bray has the luxury of having some big, athletic receivers, and his line is just going to keep getting better.


I expect him to be one of the top QBs in the country by 2012, as his body and game continue to develop.


From @DavidLeake: Does Oklahoma's defense have enough to make a run?


I think so. They have athletic, big bodies up front to go with some great talent in Travis Lewis and emerging star Corey Nelson. The secondary is a question mark, but they should still be pretty tough back there.


From @rmunoz11: Last year there was a lot of buzz around the Miami (FL) Hurricanes, but not this year. Why not? Do you think Al Golden can fix their issues quickly?


Going into 2010, Miami had a quarterback that, while still young, had made a lot of folks think he was ready to take the next step. Instead, Jacory Harris regressed during the season and ended up losing his confidence. He threw almost as many picks as he did touchdowns (17 TDs, 15 INTs), and his completion percentage dropped from 60 percent to 55 percent. If the Canes hope to improve in 2011, they'll have to address this shaky QB play.


I suspect Golden and his defensive coordinator, Mark D'Onofrio, will make Miami a more focused, tough team, but it all comes back to cutting down drastically on the turnovers. There's a lot of talent there at running back and on both lines, but if they can't stop shooting themselves in the foot, expecting more than eight wins is probably too much.


From @hogeandrew: Who will be the most dominant incoming freshman in the fall?


I've got to go with Jadeveon Clowney of the South Carolina Gamecocks. He is the most impressive high school talent I've ever seen in person. He can come in and make a huge impact on their pass defense by giving the other team nightmares in pass protection. South Carolina was 87th in pass efficiency defense last season, so they could use the help.


Around college football



• On Thursday, every college football writer I know was riveted as we all listened to Paul Finebaum's radio show. Harvey Updyke Jr., the Alabama fan accused of poisoning the oak trees at Auburn's Toomer's Corner, went on Finebaum's show on Thursday, the same show he called into as "Al from Dadeland" in January to confess his crime. It was the most bizarre hour of radio I've ever heard. Here is a transcript.


The only thing more surreal than listening to Updyke was knowing that his attorney allowed him to go on the show. I kept thinking that in the commercial break Finebaum must have been running around his studio high-fiving everyone in sight.


• The USF Bulls made a big splash last summer by landing three scholarship transfers from major college football programs, and the Bulls could have another this spring in ex-Florida Gators receiver Chris Dunkley, writes Greg Auman.




"I think USF is the top one on his list," said Blaze Thompson, Dunkley's coach at Pahokee High in 2009. "A lot of schools have expressed interest in him, but USF is the only one he has actually visited. They're interested in him, and he had asked me to look into them as well."


Dunkley redshirted in his only season at Florida and said in a statement last week that he wanted to get "a fresh start somewhere else." The 5-foot-11, 174-pound receiver was rated by Scout.com as the No. 8 receiver nationally in the Class of 2010 (No. 9 by Rivals) and chose the Gators out of high school over schools like Alabama, Georgia, Miami, West Virginia and Michigan.


Dunkley's grades had been in question at Florida, but Thompson said he will be able to finish spring classes with a grade-point average of 2.0 or higher, which would allow him to accept a scholarship at another school. By NCAA rules, he will have to sit out the 2011 season, giving him three years of eligibility at his new school starting in 2012. Dunkley will still have to be accepted into school at USF, but Thompson said his understanding was that "things are moving forward" with the Bulls, after talking with USF assistant coach Kevin Patrick, who recruits Pahokee.





• Beano Cook has some interesting thoughts on Ohio State's future, as he predicts Urban Meyer will be coaching the Buckeyes in 2012, as detailed in Bob Hunter's blog.




"I think Ohio State has major problems and I think Jim Tressel has major problems," Cook said. "I've said on my Podcast ... (that) Urban Meyer will be the coach at Ohio State in 2012. That was my prediction and I stick by that prediction. Urban Meyer will be ready to coach somewhere. He said when he was coaching Florida that there were only three schools he would ever coach at Michigan, Ohio State and Notre Dame. I think Brian Kelly is going to do the job at Notre Dame and Michigan just hired a new coach, and I think this will be Jim Tressel's last year. I'm not saying it should be ... This is a mess, it isn't over yet and I think this is his last year coaching at Ohio State."


Why?


"I just think that now that it's come out that he talked about this problem with an alumnus from Jeannette, Pa., (Terrelle) Pryor's hometown about selling these jerseys and other things and he did not tell the president or athletic director. I think Ohio State will get hit by the NCAA because they were misled. The worst thing you can do with the NCAA is not tell them the truth right away and that's what happened. I think Ohio State is going to get hit.


"I just think it's a mess. This is a real mess. These kids aren't going to play for five games. That's going to be constant story. I just think he will resign. That's my opinion. That's all. It's just a prediction and that's what we do in this business. Predict."





Who knows? As I wrote in December, I could see Meyer as the guy replacing Tressel. Back when I wrote that, the Tressel NCAA mess hadn't come out yet and I figured it might be a few years, not next season as Beano is speculating.


• Rick Telander weighs in on the Notre Dame report on the Declan Sullivan tragedy:




A kid goes up 40 feet in a wavering mechanical jigsaw, with no training whatsoever (per the report), on a day when debris and branches are being blown around, when the wind never gets below 20 mph in South Bend, when gusts are in the 30s, when a 53-mph blast comes out of the weather turbulence and slaps Sullivan and his contraption onto the nearby cement street like a catapult dropping its payload on a courtyard square, and, you know, who could have stopped it?


What Jenkins (Rev. John I. Jenkins, school president) knows, as does everybody who has allowed the entertainment-driven, money-sodden, D-I college football entertainment behemoth to take over our campuses the way a fog blankets a countryside, is that none of this truly makes sense, and the bigger the lunacy, the smaller the contrition needed. Consider this: Why does every college football practice have to be filmed? Why aren't the two permanent towers on Notre Dame's practice field 50-yard lines enough? Why does any school need not one, not two, but sometimes six student cameramen high in the air, sometimes risking their lives, so Coach can see if Big Jimmy is popping out of his stance? Where does the football arms race end?


The report passes off this looming nuttiness so passively that you'd almost think it was divine law: "The Notre Dame football team, as is customary for major college football teams, films its indoor and outdoor practice sessions. Coaches then use the film to critique and teach the players.


"To be effective, the film should record all of the players involved in the particular drill or play. This is accomplished through filming from elevated heights."


But, of course! South Bend is about 90 miles southeast of Chicago, not far at all from the South Side. Here's what the Sun-Times had as its front-page weather words the morning of Oct. 27: "BATTEN DOWN." The first story in the paper was entitled "WILD WEATHER" and described the damage a large Midwestern storm had done on the 26th.





• For the second year in a row, Texas landed a big-time running back recruit. Johnathan Gray, an Aledo High (Texas) product and one of the best running backs in the 2012 class, committed to Texas over Texas A&M and the TCU Horned Frogs, Jamie Newberg writes.




"The thing he kept saying over and over it was a family atmosphere that reminded him of Aledo," said Aledo coach Tim Buchanan. "The big deal was Mack [Brown] and Major [Applewhite] stayed. That sealed the deal for Johnathan. He and Major have a great relationship."


It should be somewhat of a smooth transition for Gray, at least in terms of learning the Longhorns offense. There will be a lot of familiarity there according to coach Buchanan.


"We went down last week to Austin last week," Buchanan said. "In fact, I took my whole entire offensive staff and discovered we are very similar. They do a lot of stuff that we do. He has a chance to be really special for Texas."





Last year, Texas reeled in Malcolm Brown, the nation's No. 7 overall recruit and No. 2 running back prospect.


Gray's dad James had a good career as a running back for Texas Tech.


• Speaking of big back-to-back recruiting doubles, Auburn pulled off quite a coup in nabbing touted QB prospect Zeke Pike, on the heels of signing blue-chip QB Kiehl Frazier in the 2011 class.


"Pike is a big and athletic passer that has deceptive movement and ability to keep plays alive with his feet," said ESPN's Tom Luginbill. "He fits the mold of what Auburn would like to have at the quarterback spot from a mobility standpoint and he can operate the zone read as a power runner. He has the arm to make all the college level throws, but Auburn's coaches are going to have to refine his mechanics and footwork to develop more consistent accuracy from him. This is a position of need for the Tigers from a depth standpoint."


I'll admit I was a little surprised when I'd heard Pike was expected to commit to Auburn a few days before his announcement. When I spoke to him on April 5, he told me he wanted to play in a pro-style offense, but that doesn't mean he'd count out teams deemed as spread attacks, such as Auburn. "Coach [Gus] Malzahn is great about adapting to what he has," Pike said, using Chris Todd and the Tigers' 2009 offense as his example.


• The CFL draft is coming up soon, and Duane Forde has his top prospects.




1. Orlando Franklin -- OG -- Miami: Projected to go within the first three rounds of the NFL Draft, he's clearly the cream of this crop. In fact, he's already good enough that he considered entering the 2010 NFL Draft as an underclassman. He qualifies as a non-import but, having moved from Toronto to Florida in high school, he still needs to apply to the CFL to gain that status before he can officially enter the draft. That's why he doesn't appear on the CFL's Canadian Scouting Bureau rankings.


2. Vaughn Martin -- DT -- Western Ontario: Since he was drafted by the NFL's San Diego Chargers in 2009, many people have probably forgotten that he's not eligible for the CFL draft until next spring. Had he been eligible to enter the CFL early, he would've been the top prospect in either of the last two drafts.


3. Tyler Holmes -- OT -- Tulsa: The redshirt junior and son of former CFL running back Richard Holmes enters his third season as a starter for the Golden Hurricane. He made the Sporting News Freshman All-American team in 2008.


4. Scott Mitchell -- OT -- Rice: He has started every game at left tackle for the Owls since midway through his freshman season and earned Second Team Conference USA All-Star in 2009.


5. Kito Poblah -- WR -- Central Michigan: The Montreal born Florida raised receiver is a big time playmaker, who has 110 receptions for 1350 yards over the last three seasons. Like Franklin, he'll qualify as a non-import but still requires league approval.





• Top defensive back recruit Geno Smith, who is a candidate to be the state of Georgia's No. 1 football prospect for 2012, confirmed that his leader is Alabama, with Tennessee and Florida State rounding out his top three, reports Michael Carvell.


• Tweet of the Day: From former Cal wide receiver and current director of football events at ESPN RISE Brian Stumpf:

[Boscoe]

Thanks fellas!