Soft Pretzel Logic

NEW YORK -- If you don't mind, I'd like to have a small rant for a moment...

This might well be the worst big city in the country to be in during college football season.

Yes, the TV networks do their studio shows here, and the split-national feeds usually get the biggest games of the week nationwide. But this city itself doesn't really have much to offer the college football landscape in the way that other big cities do, nor does it have really deep ties to a nearby program.

Think about it. Boston has Boston College; Chicago has Northwestern and Illinois; Los Angeles has USC and UCLA; San Francisco has Cal and Stanford; Miami has, well, Miami; Dallas and Houston have Texas, Texas A&M and a wide range of lesser I-A teams.

In Philadelphia, we have strong ties to Penn State even if it's far away, as well as Temple and some high-level I-AA programs in Lehigh, Delaware and Villanova.

It seems to me that New York has really only attached itself to Rutgers, New Jersey's state school, as the Scarlet Knights have risen to national prominence in recent years; similarly, Syracuse and Connecticut have links here that have varied in strength over time but have never been really strong.

And of course, there's Notre Dame, which has perhaps had deeper ties to the five boroughs historically than any of the above schools.

But when you get down to it, all New York really has are three I-AA schools, two of which are pretty bad. Hofstra's doing well this year, but Fordham and Columbia perennially occupy the lower ends of the Patriot and Ivy Leagues.

I'm at the latter's football stadium to cover Penn's trip here, over 100 blocks away from Columbia's actual campus and a pretty long subway ride from just about anything else in Manhattan.

It's a very picturesque setting on the Harlem River, but it makes Philadelphia's college football landscape look a lot better from afar.

Now, on to the headlines...

Penn State's latest scandal dominates the coverage in the Inquirer and Daily News today. Phil Sheridan writes a column at the top of the Inquirer's front page about the impact of the rape allegations against Austin Scott on the school's clean image.

Jeff McLane provides the news angle, and between the two stories it's worth remembering that Scott does have to be proven guilty in court no matter what we say about all this. The Daily News' Bernard Fernandez talks to Scott's mother, who says she thinks her son will be proven innocent.

There's also the matter of a pretty big football game today between the Nittany Lions and No. 19 Wisconsin at Beaver Stadium.

In his College Football Report, Mike Jensen leads with LSU's five-for-five performance on fourth down last week and wonders what today's big upsets will be. Games of the Week leads with Purdue at Michigan and LSU at Kentucky.

The local college preview boxes include Rutgers at Syracuse, Villanova at Massachusetts, Temple at Akron and Penn at Columbia.

We have some basketball stories as well, including the big news that St. Joe's guard D.J. Rivera will not play this semester for academic reasons. It was one thing to lose Jawan Carter on a transfer, but to now be down two guards is a different story. Still having Rivera for A-10 play should keep the Hawks in the hunt for a league title.

Villanova will have four co-captains this year: Scottie Reynolds, Dante Cunningham, Shane Clark and Dwayne Anderson. None are seniors, which isn't something you see too often.

And finally, Mel Greenberg looks at the Temple women's team, which made sure Dawn Staley wouldn't leave for brighter lights this past offseason.