CHICAGO -- Just so you know, there still is no succession plan at Penn State. Not one that doesn't include Joe Paterno's hand-picked successor. Not as Joe Paterno's latest contract inches toward its end. Not after the assumed successor signed a long-term contract at his current school. Not as Joe makes 80 the new 40.
"What were you going to do before you got hurt?" Paterno quoted the doctor who treated him as saying after his left leg was injured in a 2006 sideline collision.
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| Now 80, JoePa enters his 42nd season at PSU. (Getty Images) |
"There's no reason you can't," the doc said.
If there were a succession plan, AD Tim Curley would be calling a press conference soon to announce Paterno's eventual successor. That, or working back channels to pry Greg Schiano away from Rutgers.
But there's no free-and-open plan because there is no one to replace. Even if there were, you get the distinct impression the administration doesn't want defensive coordinator Tom Bradley or another assistant favored by Joe. And Schiano is now tied up at Rutgers through 2016, closer to a national title than he would be at Miami or State College.
Plenty of coaches would kill to be at Penn State you say? There are plenty of ADs willing to offer extensions, too. And plenty of mountains to climb in the Big Ten. Michigan, Ohio State and arguably Wisconsin have better programs at the moment. Iowa can lap Penn State in any given year.
That suggests time is critical. Yes, you've heard that before, but you weren't there when a plan of succession was mentioned to Curley at the Big Ten media days this week. You could practically see him backpedal.
Curley and Penn State president Graham Spanier reportedly were among four administrators who approached Paterno at the end of the 2004 season, urging him to step down.
"The bottom line is that certainly we want to prepare for the future. ... " Curley told CBS SportsLine.com. "Some (transitions) go smoother than others. ... I hope Joe coaches forever. We both know that's not going to be the case."
Paterno shooed away his bosses that day three years ago, telling them to "relax." Since the intervention JoePa has been vindicated and emboldened. He'd already received a contract extension in May 2004. There was a succession plan back then -- his own -- to hand the program over to "an in-house guy," long speculated to be Bradley.
Bradley, Curley and Spanier continue to wait -- not that that's a bad thing as long as Penn State keeps winning. But doesn't there have to be some sort of plan? Paterno has 16 months left on his contract and shows no signs of slowing down despite broken limbs, balky bowels and critics.
The man will be 82 if he leads Penn State to a bowl in 2008, the last year of his deal. When he takes the field on Sept. 1 against Florida International, he will break Amos Alonzo Stagg's record for most years coaching at one school, 41.
