Penn State has always been known as Linebacker U, and in recent years this tradition hasn't changed with players like Paul Posluszny and Dan Connor. Of course, both of those gentleman are now either in the NFL, or on the verge of being in the NFL with the draft coming up in a few weeks. The Nittany Lions weren't too worried about the loss of Connor last season, because they had their new beast in the middle ready to take over in Sean Lee.

Unfortunately, the Nittany Lions are going to have to go to a backup plan because Lee has torn an ACL and will likely miss the 2008 season.

Lee will have surgery within the next 2-4 weeks and rehabilitation will take approximately nine months, according to Dr. Wayne Sebastianelli, Penn State's Director of Athletic Medicine.

"I have a responsibility to the team to help do everything I can this year in what might be a non-conventional way," Lee said in a school news release. "I have to turn this into a positive. It's a bump in the road. I'm excited about the team we have and the kind of season we can have. It's a great opportunity for a young guy."

Easier said than done because replacing a player like Lee won't be easy. If you were so inclined, you could make an argument that Lee was the team's best defensive player last season, even with Connor alongside him. He's already been named Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week twice, was a second-team all conference selection, and was going to be a team captain. If there's any good news about this, and it's of little consolation, it's that Lee does have a redshirt to burn.

It's been a particularly bad off-season for Penn State, what with just about everybody on the team getting arrested for something, and the never-ending distraction that is Joe Paterno's impending retirement. The way things are going, I'm pretty sure I'm going to wake up to the following headline at some point in the next week: Penn State's Beaver Stadium Collapses, Killing Entire Team. Just watch, it'll happen.

Chris Bell was a highly touted recruit and promising freshman whose sophomore season was derailed by misbehavior. He is also bats. Full-on bats.

For example, the most prominent but far from only incident of mishbehavior last year was Bell delivering a Macho Man Randy Savage flying elbow to some civilian during an epic brawl Penn State bloggers refer to as "the HUB fight." History is silent on whether Bell instructed his victim to SNAP INTO A SLIM JIM OOOOH YEAH afterwards.

That's hard to top, but it looks like Bell's done it:

Former football player Chris Bell was arrested last night after Penn State Police said he threatened another student with an 8-inch blade during a dispute that yielded no injuries in Pollock Dining Commons.

That's not a knife! This is a knife! Except, yeah, an eight-inch knife is pretty much a knife at all times even in Australia.

With Bell already suspended from the team for an array of issues including the aforementioned flying elbow and academic problems -- thus the "former" in the quote above -- everyone is writing Bell's Penn State obituary, which would make him the first kid to actually get booted from the team since Anthony Scirroto rounded up a posse and got his unlawful trespass on, ushering an era of misbehavior more traditionally associated with Miami or Tennessee than Penn State.

How much does this hurt the Nittany Lions? Moderately. PSU's three leading receivers return but are seniors, and after Bell's class Penn State has had severe difficulty attracting skill position players. He would have been the #1 option in 2009.

Egads! It's the 1960's all over again.

Follow the script: Dad's a crusty old Republican. Son's enamored with the candidate representing "hope", "change" and an end to a protracted war. They share the same blue collar Pennsylvania work address and the love that comes with a father-son relationship.

Such is life with the Paterno's, the first family of Pennsylvania college football.

Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, a noted Republican, says he thought long and hard before deciding against greeting Bill Clinton when the former president visited campus on behalf of his wife's presidential campaign. [snip]

Paterno's son and quarterbacks coach, Jay Paterno, supports Clinton's rival, Sen. Barack Obama, who is scheduled to make a campaign stop at Penn State on Sunday. The younger Paterno said at the opening of Obama's campaign office in State College that his choice was rooted in what's best for his five children.

"The only thing I have for Jay is admiration for him because he's willing to do what he thinks is right," Paterno said. "He's sticking his neck out for Obama."

Joe Paterno may eat brains, but he has yet to eat his own flesh and blood. Although maybe for the sake of the Penn State offense maybe he should.

Remember him? The former Rivals.com #1 recruit, with offers from everyone? He's now buried in a Philadelphia Daily News story about holes in Penn State's roster as the Nittany Lions enter spring practice is the following:

On offense, strengths are at wide receiver as the top three receivers (Derrick Williams, Deon Butler and Jordan Norwood) all return for their senior seasons

Ho hum, which is not exactly how you want your senior year to be treated when you're all-everything and can name your college. You're not even supposed to have a senior year when you get that kind of billing. Welcome to Williams' world, paragraph ten and so very far from the headlines.

And, no, we're not piling on Penn State this week. It just seems that way.

(H/T: The Wizard of Odds)

Does anything really surprise you anymore? Me neither. But still, if you're a journalism or communications student at Penn State have we got an offer for you. Now you can study Joe Paterno and his interaction with the media starting this fall. Which means you should probably get real familiar with the word "brains", and study all the Night of the Living Dead movies for self defense purposes if you plan on getting close to the subject.

As far as the class goes, I'm going to suggest to you that you stay guarded against believing schools like Temple, Youngstown State, and Florida International ever have a chance of winning anything other than sportsmanship awards. Because over his time as coach of Penn State, Joe has been known to build up the opposition in his press conferences well beyond what any knowledgeable college football fan would believe. Some people refer to that as lying. But in Joe's case, that's just Joe being Joe.

And speaking of Joe being Joe, you might find out that Joe is kind of renaissance man in your studies. Football coach (obviously), but more importantly, the dude can twirl!

Lion in pissy winter.

The thing they always tell you about war in the books and the movies and the videogames and the expressive dance routines and, I dunno, the carefully crafted toys that if arranged with equal care reveal fundamental truths about the world at war -- and maybe transform into dinosaurs -- is that it's all about the waiting. It's all about the hours beforehand when you see your enemy across the river, sharpening his bayonets on what would otherwise be a pleasant autumn evening.

Joe Paterno and Graham Spanier are marshaling their forces and assembling whetstones in State College, Pennsylvania, and it looks like it's going to turn ugly:

Two members of Penn State's Board of Trustees yesterday told the Post-Gazette that negotiations regarding a possible contract extension or succession plan for Paterno have not gone smoothly.

President Graham Spanier, who ultimately will decide whether Paterno, 81, stays or leaves when his contract expires after the 2008 season, declined to answer specific questions about Paterno's status yesterday.

"There's nothing new to report," Spanier said before the trustees' bimonthly meeting at the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel. "And there are no talks set up for the foreseeable future."

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette further speculates that the uncertainty about Paterno's contract extension could drag into the season, creating a media circus and killing Penn State's already frail recruiting.

Thumbs up for Celine Dion! Er, I mean the #1 QB recruit in all the land!

Terrelle Pryor's done playing the basketball -- his team foighted (oi!) its way to the state championship last weekend -- and is ready to bring the tablets down from the mountain and bestow them unto one possibly lucky coach:

''I'll be deciding next week. Next week, I'm going to say the school I'm going to, sign it, and get it over with,'' Pryor told a huge throng of reporters. ''I don't know yet [if I'll take any other visits]. I'll probably be done.''

Pryor also says that it's down to two schools "but I can't tell you which two." We can deduct, though: he never visited Oregon, so they're out, and he called Penn State "country," so... yeah, they're probably out. Also he would be coached by Jay Paterno.

This would leave it to Ohio State and Michigan, which thought it would be anyway. Article after article says things like "If it's not Ohio State, I'll eat my own intestines," so I kinda think it will be Ohio State. Just like the rest of the planet.

Previously On Fanhouse:
Terrelle Pryor Is Fightin' Round the World
Pryor Not Signing, May Be on Mushrooms
Hurray: Terrelle Pryor May Not Commit on Signing Day
Is Terrelle Pryor Even Eligible?

Oi! Friend of Lloyd Carr, aspirational hero of Terrelle Pryor, Russell Crowe is weirdly central to Big Ten college football.

Terrelle Pryor hasn't decided on a school yet because he's busy playing in basketball games, having verbal altercations after basketball games, and getting in the middle of wild brawls during basketball games:

Pryor said Joe Long, the son of North Catholic's coach and a junior forward, called him a name in the handshake line. Pryor was visibly upset and was held back by teammates from going toward North Catholic's team.

Pryor also said the fight started after a North Catholic player "said some things to us" while Jeannette's team was walking to its locker room in the bottom level of Hempfield's gymnasium. Pryor said other Jeannette players claimed a North Catholic player used a racial slur.

The "racial slur" card is a guaranteed get-out-of-opprobrium-free card, but after a similarly explosive event in a previous playoff game, maybe Pryor might want to, say, not flip out when someone says something offensive but harmless?

The behavior here is pretty reprehensible: something was said in the handshake line. A minute later, Jeannette's team goes after the North Catholic team as they head to their locker room. Classy. If Pryor picks up a personal foul every time someone makes a your mom joke, he'll quickly shed the Next Vince Young label and acquire a less salutary one: the Next Marcus Vick.

Here's why athletic directors are frowning today...

It's time to play Guess The Misdemeanor!: As a coach, Greg Schiano has to make decisions. Most of them are easy, like "should I blitz against Syracuse" (yes) and "should I sell an internal organ in order to bribe Ray Rice to stay" (yes again--the left kidney and a lobe of the liver).

When it comes to player discipline, the answers aren't so simple. So when Schiano found out defensive tackle Justin Francis was arrested, he suspended the young man, then informed the media. Nobody likes a secretive coach, after all. But he decided not to provide the specifics of the arrest itself, which we celebrate as an even better decision. Why? Because it allows us the opportunity to engage in reckless speculation! AOL cannot attest to the veracity of any of these rumors, of course--mainly because this author making them up right now--but we're confidently narrowing down the list of possible infractions to the ones listed below.

• Riding a puma through the drive-thru at the local Arby's. Pumas are endangered, pal!
• Running an illegal bronzer smuggling ring. Yes, it's Jersey, so the market's there, but get a permit, for crissakes.
• Parking fifteen stolen cars on the tarmac at Newark International Airport. Pilots do not appreciate "obstacle courses."
• Puma bombing. Again with the pumas!

There's a for sale sign in front of Bill Cowher's Raleigh, N.C. mansion, which means there has to be speculation about him getting back into coaching.

With every NFL head coaching job filled, it was up to Penn State fans to speculate that Bill Cowher could be coming to town. LaschOut, a Penn State site, says that Cowher visited campus to meet with athletic director Tim Corley. Putting 2+2 together, the site speculated that the for sale sign could be tied to Cowher coming to State College to replace Penn State's favorite octogenarian road rager, Joe Paterno.

There's only one problem with the story. As the Post-Gazette's Ed Bouchette found out, Cowher is moving, but it's only a couple of blocks down the street.

Cowher told Bouchette that they are moving because they found their current house is too big, so they are building a new house just down the road near a golf course. They actually waited until after the final NFL head coaching job was filled to try to make sure that the for sale sign wouldn't create false rumors.

Cowher gets linked to every NFL head coaching job out there, but he's pretty consistently denied any plans to get back into coaching, at least until after his youngest daughter graduates from high school. And he's said he may never coach again. Replacing a crotchety old coach at Penn State probably won't change his mind.

Hat Tip: College Football Talk