Bill O'Brien, players comment

Listening to Bill O'Brien on Mike & Mike, and ESPN this morning. He sounded incredibly enthusiastic, of course I know he has to be, but it seemed real, not fake telling people what they want to hear. Then seeing the players comments, don't have a direct link, came across it on ESPN.com. They also speaking from the heart, seemed they are all-in for this season. I don't know if O'Brien will turn out to be a good/great coach, but he seems to be a very good speaker, sounds like he has a plan on selling future kids to come to PSU. Also seems he has this yrs team bought in. Looking at their schedule, have OSU & Wisc. at home, they could surprise some team this yr.

Like his comments about bowl games, not direct quote, but he said all due respect to bowl games, unless your playing for NC, playing infront of 108,000 fans at home might be better than some bowl. He might try to schedule Hawaii as an away game at end of yr., kinda making it their unofficial bowl game. He is going to sell kids on education you recieve at PSU, plus he said future recruits, redshirt your frosh yr., then you will elgible to play in a bowl game your jr. and/or sr. yrs. He sounds like a great motivator, of course find out if it works.

Changing subject to Matt Barkley, USC QB, said the sanctions brought team together like he never thought it would. He said it strengthed team, made them tougher. Of course USC only recieved 2 yr bowl ban, so there was light at the end of the tunnel. But the point MB was trying to make, maybe PSU team will also come together.

I think 2014, 2015 and future teams is when sanctions hurt PSU the most. Losing that many schollies will catch up to them, I don't care who is coaching will struggle, but maybe O'Brien can keep them competitive. For BIG, hopefully he can.

I just read his live chat from ESPN.

Sounds like a quality guy.

And anyone who has the balls to get in Tom Brady's face obviously knows what he's doing (they had some classic shouting matches on the sidelines this past season, I believe).

Seems like a quality guy and recruiter. We will have to wait until the season how well he will coach.

Illinois has coaches on PSU's campus right now. It is actually started to motivate PSU players to stay.

Emmert is a big hypocrite. Talking about academics over atheltics yet he creates this atmosphere.

Also when he was president of LSU his grad rates were 60% on average and Penn State's was 85%. He is a joke.

psuatgvsu wrote:

Seems like a quality guy and recruiter. We will have to wait until the season how well he will coach.

Illinois has coaches on PSU's campus right now. It is actually started to motivate PSU players to stay.

Emmert is a big hypocrite. Talking about academics over atheltics yet he creates this atmosphere.

Also when he was president of LSU his grad rates were 60% on average and Penn State's was 85%. He is a joke.

Illinois has coaches IN Happy Valley right now???

Wow. Sounds like Ron Zook never left.

Spoke to my buddy who is a PSU alumnus and he is irate about the punishment. PSU is a very proud school, this won't be as bad as people are making it out to be. They are going to galvanize and remain competitive. Sure, recruiting the next 2 or 3 years will really be hurting and the quality of play will drop a bit but they will always be competitive.

psuatgvsu, I agree, Emmert is a hypocrite. Bowl presidents making incredible amounts of money, money made from TV, final 4 starting in 14' the money that will be made from that, etc, etc. could go on and on about CFB being a business, thats not even talking about basketball & march madness.

I think everyone agrees that some punishment needed to be handed out. Though I went to Pennlive.com, not everybody would agree with that statement. I was surprised PSU didn't fight the punishment, then I red Pat Fordes article, Emmert threaten PSU with worse punishment, if that was possible, if PSU fought it. I understand PSU probably wanted to find some closure, I guess maybe they thought they would look real bad in the public eye, if they tried to fight punishment.

Good luck to O'Brien, hopefully he makes the best of this situation. Does no good for B1G if PSU takes 10 yrs to recover.

psuatgvsu, I agree, Emmert is a hypocrite. Bowl presidents making incredible amounts of money, money made from TV, final 4 starting in 14' the money that will be made from that, etc, etc. could go on and on about CFB being a business, thats not even talking about basketball & march madness.

I think everyone agrees that some punishment needed to be handed out. Though I went to Pennlive.com, not everybody would agree with that statement. I was surprised PSU didn't fight the punishment, then I red Pat Fordes article, Emmert threaten PSU with worse punishment, if that was possible, if PSU fought it. I understand PSU probably wanted to find some closure, I guess maybe they thought they would look real bad in the public eye, if they tried to fight punishment.

Good luck to O'Brien, hopefully he makes the best of this situation. Does no good for B1G if PSU takes 10 yrs to recover.

Board of Trustees are meeting with Erickson right now to discuss him signing the document. It looks like it was illegal to do without the board consent.

I believe PSU will remain competitive (Not Indiana bad) but will struggle. I just wish the NCAA would have waited until after the trial of Curley and Shultz because some things may change (especially dealing with Joe Paterno) The Freeh document just was changed today because it had two dates incorrect in it which were pretty important too.