Sporting News columnist Matt Hayes has long been one of this group’s favorite writers. Monday, he posted a typically well-written and well-thought-through piece on the current situation at Penn State. In four sentences, Hayes cuts through all the crap and nails what I feel bears 90% of the blame for the Nittany Lions’s downfall.

As for Paterno, forget that theory that the game has passed him by. That’s ridiculous. His biggest liability is his greatest strength: He is loyal to a fault. Loyal to longtime assistants who have lost key recruiting battles since the late 1990s; loyal to upperclassmen who shouldn’t be playing over more talented underclassmen.

Exactly. Football teams, like businesses, are all about what can you do to help me win now (preferably, but not necessarily, with some semblance of class). It sucks and it may even be immoral, but that’s the way it is. Loyalty is for private relationships.

Incidentally, I would put the remaining 10% of the blame for PSU’s downfall on Paterno’s letting former Defensive Coordinator Jerry Sandusky go. Sandusky was a real defensive genius, a master motivator, a classy guy, and one of the best recruiters in Penn State history (especially in Western Pennsylvania). I honestly never understood why Paterno promoted Fran Ganter as Assistant Head Coach over Sandusky.

All that I can find to disagree with in Matt Hayes’s piece is this…

Instead, Penn State has struggled of late in the key Pennsylvania-Ohio recruiting ground, losing out on impact players and watching little brother Pittsburgh re-emerge on the college football map with sparkling facilities and a young, energetic staff that relates to the me-first high school player.

…who said that we were Penn State’s little brother? These days, we’re PSU’s daddy.

Hail to The Dream Series: Cubs vs. Red Sox