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http://www.michigandaily.com/node/73954

In ‘Fourth and Long,’ a look into scandal-ridden sport

By Everett Cook, Daily Sports Editor
Published September 26, 2013

In an era when getting access to one college football program is hard, author John U. Bacon decided to immerse himself in four of them.

In his new book, titled “Fourth and Long: The Fight for the Soul of College Football,” Bacon immerses himself with a quartet of Big Ten programs — Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State and Northwestern — to get a clearer picture of the operations of college football in its current, scandal-ridden state.

The book, published by Simon & Schuster, came out on Sept. 3 and can be purchased at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, the MDen and Literati Bookstore, among other retailers.

While every program and school had their own subplots and information, perhaps the most interesting chapters covered the Penn State program the year after it received impossibly strict punishments from the NCAA the year after the Jerry Sandusky scandal.

In one of the most turmoilous situations in the history of college football, Bacon had complete access to the players, coaches and meetings, and it showed.

The most telling section came in the week after the sanctions were handed down, when the NCAA ruled that Penn State players could transfer anywhere without penalty. Players like then-senior linebacker Michael Mauti had to convince the team to stay together, even while knowing that the Nittany Lions weren’t bowl eligible and would be facing severe scholarship reductions in the upcoming years.

For the last two years, almost every bit of news out of Happy Valley has been negative. Bacon’s reporting flipped the view back onto the players and new coach Bill O’Brien, showing that inside the walls, not everything was crumbling.

“The week after the sanctions, they were trying to field enough players to fill out the schedule,” Bacon said in a phone interview with the Daily. “I didn’t realize and appreciate how close it was to actually closing. I was equally surprised and impressed by how much effort it took from the coaches, staffers and players to keep that thing from falling apart. It was not a task operation. It was not dumb luck.

“If they had done anything less than what was done, Penn State might not have had a team last year.”

Bacon — who grew up in Ann Arbor, teaches a class at Michigan and wrote a book two years ago about the Rich Rodriguez tenure — has been around the Wolverines long enough to know most of Michigan’s interworkings. But there were still some surprises behind the curtains in Ann Arbor, so to speak.

“One of the better surprises was just how hard working the band is,” Bacon said. “I really didn’t fully appreciate that even though I’ve been around it my whole life. That was a very happy aisle to turn to. Also, the budget was an eye-opener. How much goes in and where it goes. Even if you’re accustomed to certain things, certain things in there still surprised me.”

By the end of the book, it’s clear to the reader that the system is broken. There were enough stories out of Penn State alone to know that massive television contracts and money had corrupted the people supposed to be running the operation.

But for Bacon, the saving grace was in the players, not the suits in charge.

“By meeting the players at all the schools, it restored my faith that this things is worth protecting and saving,” he said. “The players I encountered had a better sense of what college football is supposed to be about and a stronger moral compass than many of the people who are leading the enterprise. While that’s wonderful, that’s not the way it’s supposed to be. I’m not getting cynical about the players in the same way I’m getting cynical about the NCAA.”

In a backwards way, it’s the players — the amateur athletes — saving the adults, the multi-millionaires.

“The players were much more sincere than even the most optimistic fans could ever hope for,” he said. “Taylor Lewan came back. What does that tell you? The Penn State players were being lured in the parking lot, knowing they could probably get some money to go other places. Almost all of them stayed. That’s amazing. The biggest surprise is that the biggest believers in college football are the players, not the people running it.”

I really need to get out to the book store and get this book and read it. I've been putting it off for weeks now. I think I'll do that tonight after I leave work.

I haven't finished the book...to be honest I haven't picked it back up since the season started.

However, what I have read so far is pretty fascinating. If you're a fan of behind-the-scenes access, and you liked the way Bacon was able to paint the picture of what was really going on at Michigan in the Three And Out book, you'll want to pick this up.

As for that article, even though I haven't read it all, thus far, and by far, the most intriguing part of the book is the PSU situation, specifically the immediate aftermath of the sanctions and how Mauti, Zordich and BOB held that team together.

What I found most fascinating is that BOB wanted to set a deadline for the players to decide whether or not they were staying or transferring. Essentially, BOB had to know what he was working with, and the tension around the program during that week or so when it was open season was extremely high.

Hell, coaches/scouts from other programs were literally PARKED OUTSIDE OF THE LOCKER ROOM, TALKING TO PLAYERS AS THEY WERE COMING IN AND OUT FROM PRACTICE. I thought that was pretty unbelievable. Bacon doesn't name any schools, but he makes it sound like they were big time programs.

Anyway, BOB wanted to set a deadline, but Mauti and Zordich told him no, that would be a terrible idea. Those three, huddled in a room and drew out a map of how to go about convincing people to stay. They knew that they had to reach a few core guys, because what those core guys did (stay or leave) was going to have a very impactful trickle down effect on other players in the program. The cool thing is that BOB actually deferred to Mauti and Zordich, and trusted in their judgement. Long story short, they were right, and they retained almost every single player save for Silas Redd, the kicker that went to Texas and a couple other nobodies.

Admin wrote:

...and they retained almost every single player save for Silas Redd...

***WAY OT*** Silas Redd will soon be on his fourth different head coach in his short college career. Bummer.