A lot has happened over the past few days but nothing bigger to me than James Franklin heading to Penn State as the head football coach.
Sure the Redskins hired Jay Gruden, the basketball team is at Florida State with a chance for redemption and football has filled in some of the coaching vacancies. We will get to all of that.
Coach Frank at Penn State creates a psychological schism event to me. I have enjoyed meeting Coach Frank and his family. To me, much like Mike Locksley, Coach Frank can sell ice to an Eskimo. Coach Frank was a Terp to me.
I know that things change and Kevin Anderson decided to go with a different regime for our football future. That led to Coach Frank getting the head job at Vanderbilt. His success there gave him access to the top jobs in college and even the NFL.
Good for him, I like him and he is a winner.
Schism? Yes, a sharp break from a reality that I was comfortable with. Penn State is/was the ultimate evil empire to me. More than the Dallas Cowboys. Even more than Duke. More then Nike and certainly more than Carolina or NC State.
This has nothing to do with Sandusky, but a lot to do with Paterno. It has to do with entitlement and a mixing of fandom and the football team that is (to me) dangerous mix.
What happened at State Penn is that the fans that they think they are the team. The over association with the program allows for excesses and cover-ups. In my opinion, from a distance, that mentality still exists. I see the Penn State fan-base as feeling entitled to win.
Duke also has an “entitled to win” feel about them. That is why it is easy to dislike them. It is easier to give a pass to an opponent that is happy to be here and appreciative of winning.
Enough about UPS (as they were once famously called by a recruit).
This is about having a Terp (or former Terp) that you like going to coach a team you hate. I don’t have many of these experiences. Maybe when Mike Mussina went from being an Oriole to a Yankee. Or when Bobby Ross left Maryland and ended up the head coach at Georgia Tech.
That’s it, a short list.
I can’t root for Coach Frank at Penn State. I am happy for him as a person. But I am not going to root for Penn State. OK, that’s not fair, I will root for them to lose every game they play.
I want Coach Frank to do well, that does not match with my lifetime dislike of the Evil Empire. In the end, I wish he did not go to Happy Valley. He has chosen to become the enemy. Let the rivalry begin.
(By the way, I know that Maryland’s record against Penn State is 1-1-35. That is one win, one tie and thirty-five loses.)
A dislike greater than Duke, is one HELL of a statement. If that was thoughtful, after a 10 second count, considered and not simply in the moment, I can think of NO bigger example of one particular statement.
From one who is somewhat up close and personal.
Fuzzy
I feel sorry for you.
35-1-1 in favor of penn state. that's a rivalry? that's more like the hammer and the nail.
by the way for the person who mentioned duke. the duke md rivalry is only about 13-14 yrs old and was most heated in the early 2000's when both teams were at the top of their respective games. since then the "rivalry" is much more important to terp fans. ya see duke players and fans don't usually circle the date when they are playing a potential nit team and of course duke's real rival is n.c.