Pa. columnist tells Penn State fans to lay off their freshman quarterback after fruitless game at Iowa

Penn State freshman quarterback Rob Bolden didn't have a sensational performance last Saturday night at Iowa. No shock, that.

But Nittany Lions fans -- some, anyhow -- are calling for a quarterback change. And David Jones of the Harrisburg Patriot-News tells them off.

I highly recommend reading this entire column. Click here to do so. In the meantime, here's but a couple of excerpts:

I'm only speaking to the bi-polars now, not the reasonable fans. And if you are a reasonable fan, you know one of these people.

They predict somewhere between 10-2 and 12-0 every August, regardless of the realities presented them. Blind optimism oozes from their pores. Those who cite obvious flaws and begin sentences with “But...” are not welcome in their debates. They are fanatics in the truest sense, zealots to whom rational analysis is a foreign concept.

Oh, but when the season starts and a team with a patchwork offensive line and a true freshman quarterback who's been on campus 4½ months and a defense with no play-makers loses twice by identical 3-TD deficits to ranked opponents on the road, we're all supposed to be shocked and dismayed and angry – yes, angry – as they are. ...

The suggestion of changing quarterbacks at this stage is so stupid I don't even know why I'm addressing it except it makes me angry. Yeah, I'm supposed to be the reasonable one and I'm angry. Because people are so fickle and capricious anymore when things don't go their way immediately. And this runs way beyond the realm of spectator sport. They ping-pong back and forth in their sentiments like preteens wigged out on Mountain Dew, unable to grasp convictions of any kind.

You Iowa fans may enjoy this column Jones wrote about Kirk Ferentz last week. Here's an excerpt from that:

Major donors and season ticket holders are essentially stockholders; the coach's plan must be sold to them constantly in the privileged little midweek quarterback club gatherings. Media members probe and press for details the coach doesn't necessarily want to reveal; they must be salved and finessed enough so an acrimonious relationship doesn't result. Players must be motivated and cajoled into peak performance. Recruits and their parents must be presented a pleasing mosaic of the program that at any one time may contrast wildly from reality.

Sell, sell, sell. That's how the game is won.

And yet when you speak to Ferentz for a few minutes in midseason when the volume of the pitch is most feverish, he almost always seems calm and cool and matter-of-fact, like some guy you met in an airport bar waiting for a delayed flight. In that way, he's a lot like Joe Paterno, a man who's always had the knack but now has built his legacy, really has nothing left to lose and can afford to be nothing but himself.

This Jones is good. If I weren't so far above petty jealousy ... OK, I'm jealous.