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Joe Paterno, who built a legacy through 46 celebrated years as head football coach at Penn State University only to see it shaken by a child sex abuse scandal involving a longtime top assistant coach, has died of complications from lung cancer. He was 85.

"He fought hard until the end, stayed positive, thought only of others and constantly reminded everyone of how blessed his life had been," his family said in a statement announcing his death Sunday. "He was a man devoted to his family, his university, his players and his community."

COMPLETE STORY (Newsday.com)

Here's a look at some of Paterno's milestone wins:

September 17, 1966: Paterno wins in his first game as head coach at Penn State after 16 years as an assistant. The Nittany Lions beat Maryland, 15-7. In Paterno’s first season, the team goes 5-5. The team doesn’t finish at or worse than .500 again until 1988, when it falls to 5-6.

January 1, 1969: Quarterback Chuck Burkhart scores with 15 seconds left in the Orange Bowl to bring Penn State within one point of Kansas. Paterno elects to go for the two-point conversion rather than kicking the extra point and settling for a tie. The first attempt fails but is waived off when Kansas is penalized for having too many men on the field. The second attempt is successful, giving Penn State a 15-14 win and Paterno his first of two consecutive and five overall undefeated seasons.

January 1, 1983: No. 2 Penn State never trails in beating top-ranked Georgia 27-23 in the Sugar Bowl. The win gives Paterno his first national championship.

January 2, 1987: No. 2 Penn State beats No. 1 Miami, 14-10. In a winner-take-all Fiesta Bowl. A red-zone stop by the defense in the final minute gives Paterno his second national championship in five years.

January 2, 1995: Penn State beats Oregon, 38-20, in the Rose Bowl. The win makes Paterno the first and only coach to have won the four big New Year’s Day bowls (Rose, Sugar, Cotton and Orange.) Penn State finished the season undefeated and ranked second in the polls and won its first of three Big Ten championships under Paterno. Nebraska also was undefeated and won the national championship.

October 27, 2001: Penn State beats Ohio State, 29-27. For Paterno, it is career victory No. 324, and he passes the late Paul “Bear” Bryant for most wins among major college coaches.

May 16, 2006: Paterno is elected to the College Football Hall of Fame.

November 6, 2010: Paterno earns career victory No. 400 when Penn State beats Northwestern, 35-21. The Nittany Lions had trailed 21-0. He is the first FBS coach to reach that mark.

October 29, 2011: Win No. 409 moves Paterno past Eddie Robinson among Division I coaches.

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ESPN's Jeremy Schaap on the life and legacy of former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno...

College Football penn state, joe paterno

After dominating LSU in every facet of the game on Monday night’s BCS Title Game played at the Superdome, the Alabama Crimson Tide are the champions of college football.  It was an epic performance by the Alabama’s defense as they held LSU to 17 rushing yards and one first down in the first half and finished with 39 on the ground, 92 overall and five first downs. LSU was averaging 38.5 points a game for the season.

Tide quarterback AJ McCarron finished 23-of-34 for 234 yards and no interceptions against a defense fielding a pair of All-America cornerbacks. Just for good measure, Alabama had no turnovers, one penalty and zero return yards allowed against a team that had scored nine defensive or special teams touchdowns.

The game was about as boring as you can ask for to watch, but it was a marvelous performance nonetheless.

From around the web…

Alabama proved it's best, but 2011 unsatisfying nonetheless (SportsIllustrated.com)
Alabama had long since put away the game. The Tide were 4:36 away from a national championship whether or not they scored another point. But for their sake, and for college football's sake, Trent Richardson's 34-yard touchdown run to put the final clamps on LSU was absolutely, positively needed.

Alabama, LSU reload, will compete for another title in 2012 (SportingNews.com)
Don’t ask Nick Saban if the Tide can make it three titles in four years next season—“I’m a day-to-day guy,” he said in the wee hours Monday night, shaking his head at the question—but know that his program can reload like precious few others in the country. As can LSU.

Game produces lowest TV rating of BCS era (al.com)
Overnight ratings for Alabama's 21-0 victory over LSU were the lowest for a national championship in the 14-year history of the BCS. The All-SEC affair, the first championship pairing teams from the same conference, drew a 13.8 overnight rating on ESPN. The previous record low was a 14.3 for Miami-Nebraska at the 2002 Rose Bowl.

FINAL RANKINGS (CBSSports.com)

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Cincinnati beats Vanbilt in Liberty Bowl
Memphis Commercial Appeal
"Last year at this time (when Cincinnati finished the 2010 season 4-8), I text messaged everyone of our players and said '2011 -- be a champion, we're going to be back in a bowl game'," said Jones, whose '11 Bearcats finished at 10-3. "Our players answered everything we asked them to do."

UC wins Liberty Bowl
Cincinnati Enquirer
Ralph David Abernathy IV returned a kickoff 90 yards for a touchdown early in the fourth quarter for the go-ahead score in UC's 31-24 win against Vanderbilt in the Liberty Bowl.

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The NCAA stunned Ohio State and the Buckeye Nation on Tuesday when it announced that the Buckeyes will be ineligible to play in any bowl game next season, adding to the school’s self-imposed penalties for the violation that caused five players to be suspended an ultimately cost head coach Jim Tressel his job.

The news hits hard as new head coach Urban Meyer is out hitting the recruiting trail hard and poised to get the program back on the right track.

In its ruling, the NCAA Committee of Infractions added the bowl ban and two other penalties on top of the ones the university already imposed on itself. 

--Stripped four more football scholarships on top of Ohio State’s prior forfeiture of five scholarships over three seasons. The NCAA stipulated that OSU forfeit three scholarships (from a total of 85 to 82) in each of the next three seasons.

-- Added nearly 1 1/2 years to the probation imposed by Ohio State on the football program. The school wanted a two-year that started July 8. Instead, Ohio State will be on probation for three years through Dec. 19, 2014.

The NCAA also handed a five-year show-cause penalty to former head coach Jim Tressel for “unethical conduct” when he failed to report that some team members improperly sold memorabilia and for knowingly allowing ineligible players to compete throughout the 2010 season.

The show-cause penalty against Tressel signifies he is a serious offender, with the NCAA saying that he must sit out the first five games for his first season and any post-season games at any NCAA school that hires him. The school could appeal the penalty.

“The former head coach failed to pursue any of the options available to him that would have preserved the well-being of his institution and his student-athletes,” the report said. “As a result, the committee concluded that the former head coach should be seriously sanctioned.”

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from ESPN.com...

Cincinnati Bearcats coach Butch Jones said Monday he had agreed to a contract extension that would keep him at the school through the 2017 season.

Jones, who led Cincinnati to a share of the Big East title in his second season with the Bearcats, had been approached by North Carolina, Illinois and UCLA but turned away their overtures.

"I believe in what we're building," Jones said. "I think there's so many great things to building a really successful football program and not just a successful team. We have great practice facilities now. We have very good facilities. We're in a conference that we can be extremely competitive in. We have a great fan base. We've got a great place to attract the top-caliber student-athletes to."

COMPLETE ARTICLE

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Season Greetings! Bowl Season that is. With games set to kickoff in about 10 days we proudly launch two games:

College Bowl Poll
The College Bowl Poll is back again this year for all of our college football fans. The concept is simple. Pick the team you think will win each of this year’s bowl games and then rank them from 1 to 35, with the highest number going to the team you are most confident that will win.  Earn points for the games which you pick the winner.  Costs just $10 per entry. It is winner take all!

Bowl Bonanza
With our March Madness board being so popular, we’ve brought the concept to the bowl season with the brand new Bowl Bonanza! The game features football squares on steroids.  Your spot on the board gives you the same two numbers for ALL 35 Bowl Games.  The cost is just $25 per square. The BCS title game pays $400 and the other four BCS games pay $150 each. All other 30 bowls payout $50 per game. Space is limited.

The deadline to sign-up for both games is Friday, December 16…MORE INFO

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The BIG EAST Conference formally announced the addition of five prestigious universities to its ranks today, bringing its football membership to 10 and securing a strong core group of FBS schools as it expands into two divisions and works toward its goal of staging an annual conference football championship game.

The University of Central Florida, University of Houston and Southern Methodist University have accepted full membership into the BIG EAST while Boise State University and San Diego State University will compete as members in the sport of football. The BIG EAST Conference Board of Directors, by a unanimous vote of its Presidents, extended the invitations for membership. UCF, Houston and SMU will begin competing in all BIG EAST-sponsored sports in the 2013-14 academic year, while Boise State and San Diego State will start competing in football in the 2013 season.

“Over the last 32 years, the BIG EAST Conference has constantly evolved along with the landscape of college athletics,” said BIG EAST Commissioner John Marinatto. “The inclusion of these five great Universities, which bring a unique blend of premier academics, top markets, strong athletics brands and outstanding competitive quality, marks the beginning of a new chapter in that evolution. We are proud to welcome these schools to the BIG EAST family.

COMPLETE RELEASE

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