PHOTO: Penn State students camp out to protect statue

At least two Penn State students are serious about preserving the Joe Paterno statue that has come under fire since the release of the Freeh Report. How serious? Well, per the Twitter feed of PSU broadcast journalism major Jeremy Kahn, let's hope for their sake that "under fire" remains a metaphor rather than something literal:

Yes, the poster at left reads "Protect the Paterno Statue" and yes, that's a tent intended to house both the (unidentified) student and a friend through the night if need be. (They told Kaufman more students would be on the way, though we're not sure whether any were.

The poster already had plenty of company, as this photo from Blue-White Illustrated -- featuring signs reading "This statue isn't going anywhere" and "JoePa is still our hero" -- clearly shows.

But we still wouldn't read more into either of these things than "some college students like to camp out in public for whatever reason," or "a few people in Happy Valley are still willing to make signs in Paterno's defense." Those things were true yesterday and will be true tomorrow; the question is whether there's enough similar sentiment among Penn State officials to keep the statue standing in the days to come after that.