Billy Paultz Reconsidered

… and I bet I can convince you.
It was fourth and a bit less than two from the Pats 28-29 yard line. They led by six. The Colts had a time-out plus the two-minute warning left.
Statistically, the league-average conversion rate on fourth-and-two is about 60 percent. Obviously, the Pats’ rate is higher, somewhere around 70 […]

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This one is sort of, um, obvious, so let’s talk a bit about the fact that your humble correspondent has gotten the last two Penn State games wrong- I had them beating Iowa and, yes, after witnessing the Iowa game, had them losing to Illinois.
I’ve spent the last half-hour or so researching this, and I […]

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Penn State is sick, hurt, beat up. After last week’s loss to Iowa, in which the Lions suffered the indignity of simply being pushed around on the line of scrimmage, they’re mentally and emotionally damaged, too.
They’re still better than Illinois. But the Illini have talent, and if they lose badly Saturday, at home, their season […]

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The injuries are of course an issue, but Iowa is if anything more banged-up than Penn State (there’s a rumor, denied by Kirk Ferentz, that all-Big Ten tackle Bryan Bulaga has been sidelined by an infected tattoo).
Ferentz has been weird this week. He keeps categorizing his team as a work-in-progress, almost as if it can’t really be […]

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Coming to you live from Lancaster Catholic, where the mood is ruined, and that may be an understatement, by an ankle injury to Crusaders’ stud QB Kyle Smith. The expected epic battle with Manheim Central (both teams are ranked #2 in the state in their classes by Pa. Football News) probably can’t materialize without him.
So […]

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where it’s pretty nice- partly cloudy, more breezy than ideal but that’s kind of welcome given the recent soaking and 99 percent humidity. Bear in mind that even though it’s rained every day for what seems like two months, the next time we have three straight dry days you’ll see people toeing the dirt ruefully […]

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Here’s one of three segments of the latest edition of The Low Post, in which Starkie and I compare the Lakers to the great teams and Kobe to the great players.
This is segment two, recapping the NBA Finals.
Segment three: are Eagles fans all in all just pretty darn happy with Big Red, Banner, McNabb and Co.?

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Penn State is apparently going to be sanctioned by the Rose Bowl for failing to meet contracual agreements regarding media obligations.
From a statement issued by the bowl:
There were two non-compliance matters.  One involved the failure to conduct a pre-game interview with the Game Broadcaster, as required by contract.  The other involved the failure to open […]

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As several Sunday News readers have already pointed out, Pitt was included among Penn State’s 2009 non-conference opponents in my story in yesterday’s paper. It was of course a mistake, and a bizarre one. At one point the story did include a mention of Walt Harris, who was Pitt’s coach the last time it played Penn State, since he’s […]

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I didn’t enjoy John Madden’s work as much as everyone else apparently did, but he did have an amazing and interesting career.
Many of you are too young to remember Madden as the Oakland Raiders’ coach.
[His career numbers are supposed to be here, in a graphic, via profootballreference.com, but WordPress hopelessly garbled them.]
Anyway, Madden was 71 games […]

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