The PSU bashing did not begin with Jones at the Patriot. It began with Nick Horvath, in the 80s, when PSU was a consistent Top 5 contender and/or finisher. Hick Norvath came along while Ronnie Crist was still on board at the Patriot. Ronnie could be critical, but had facts and reasonable arguments to back it up. Not so with Horvath, and now with Jones.
Horvath started banging on PSU's independent schedule, ignoring the overall schedule quality inside and outside of the traditional Eastern teams. He irritated JVP with his smugness and poorly researched critiques. He irritated the readership with his petty name-calling and personal attacks, which Jones has gleefully continued and expanded.
One Horvath example... he did not see the obvious comparison of PSU's traditional Eastern opponents plus the ND and Bama yearly games of the 80s as at least equal to any of the major conferences. He felt that being in a conference was superior to being independent, even though independent schools were very prevalent at the time all over the country. He wrote an article around 1984-85 calling for PSU to drop a few Eastern Indep. games and replace them with the then mediocre-at-best bottom half of the Big Ten, such as Indiana or Illinois. He passed over the fact that we had already played Iowa in '83 and '84, as well as having played them in the 70s a number of times. His arguments made little sense. He thought people would give PSU more national credit by playing and beating Indiana rather than Syracuse. Maybe to those who followed only the Big Ten, and/or those who had a very shallow knowledge of college football, but a serious college football writer should be the one supplying the analytical depth imo. He didn't. After that, I knew he knew far less about college football than me or any of my buddies did, and his articles were forever tainted to me.
He was at the Hbg airport when PSU was leaving for the NC bowl games in '85 and '86. Horvath actually got on the PSU team planes. I happened to be standing near that boarding area to cheer on the team (I forget which of those games it was). In my relative youthful and only occasionally functioning brain, I called out to him, 'Hey Horvath, you got some balls getting on the PSU plane after the crap you write about the team.' He smiled at the 'Hey Horvath'; he turned around sheepishly and walked away with shoulder slunk with the rest of my mini-diatribe.
Jones breaking news? Hardly, imo. I think he followed Horvath's lead and was just too lazy to go hunting. He was a gatherer... he took the low-hanging stories and only went deeper if it was handed to him. I grew up reading John Travers and Ronnie Crist. Far different era, no doubt. But Crist eventually got around to being critical of Joe at times. He did it with thought, and with respect. He gave his readers like me some solid things to think about wrt PSU football. I don't know, but I bet Joe was ok with that. Joe could certainly be critical of other coaches, but was able to back it up and didn't need to be a child about it, so he could take it, too. The old guard writers had earned Joe's trust and earned their access to inside info, until the ahole form the Inquirer ruined that for all. Once that trust dried up, the lazy writers (Horvath & Jones at the helm) resorted to pettiness and name-calling. And the good folks of the Patriot News' readership were stuck with that crap reporting ever since. Too bad too many of them don't have a good point of comparison to know they have been cheated for far too long.
