Interesting.
IMHO, it takes so much to BUILD a program. And while PSU was struggling in the post-scandal years, we still had 100K coming to games and getting TV ratings. MD does not and will not.
You've got to give a lot of credit to CJF for being a key member who built PSU up from the survival years under O'Brien to the bowl years of CJF. The next step, to being a legit natty contender, is much harder. I feel like the staff and team still have a little of that blue collar mentality and need to graduate to a white collar mentality. By that I mean a confident stagger where the stage against the UMs, tOSUs and USC's aren't too big.
I love talking to executives that started out on farms or from families of working class parents. They all have that inflection point. My son told me a few years ago that his boss quit in the middle of a huge project. He was called out of his cubicle to go to a meeting by the c-level boss two steps up from him. in the room was the entire c-suite of his software company. They started asking him questions about the project. He told me he had an out of body experience where he could hear himself talking and felt like "hey, I am doing this. I am the smartest one in the room on this subject. How did it happen that the entire company is listening to me on this important project". He walked out of the meeting a new person. What that accepted the responsibility and knew his worth. I think PSU needs to have that moment.
