Michael Phelps and Mo Evans have something in common

And it appears to be their love of Mary Jane. The whole deal with Phelps took fire when this photo was revealed by a tabloid.

Now Phelps acted like a man, admitted his mistake, took full responsibility, and apologized. Here at TNL, we fully understand the social pressures that weigh on the decisions of a young man and while we would never, ever, EVER drink too much alcohol or smoke an illegal drug like pot… ever…

*awkward silence*

*sound of crickets chirping*

…we don't judge a man for making a mistake, especially when said person "mans-up" and admits his folly (take notes Barry Bonds). Apparently we're not alone, most of his major sponsors, while not condoning his actions, have stood by him. Companies like Visa Inc., Speedo, luxury Swiss watchmaker Omega and sports beverage PureSport's maker Human Performance Labs. Unfortunately there is one company that just can't forgive our beleaguered friend and that is Michigan-based sugar peddler Kellogg whose official statement is this:

Michael Phelps's behavior is "not consistent with the image of Kellogg."

Ah yes the "image" of Kellogg… do you by chance mean the Enriched Flour, High Fructose Corn Syrup laden sugar blankets you call:

Pop Tarts?

Or maybe the chocolate covered death wafers you call Chips Deluxe Chocolate Chip with Fudge Stripe cookies? You know, the cookies that have 110 calories and 6g of fat per fucking COOKIE*

I see the image you're going after Kellogg, forget the svelte swimming star with the eight gold medals whose prone to make the same mistakes most Americans make, no you apparently would prefer something more this style.

Since you are out a spokesperson, may I suggest something a little more appropriate for your artery clogging snacks, someone that gets your point across but can never die… how about the fat Homer Simpson in a Mu-mu?

Nothing says good eats like Homer in a cape and mu-mu!

Now I'm not saying Phelps should get a pass, another slip-up like this and something should be done but let's give the guy a break, he's only human and it's not like he got caught snorting blow of a dead hookers ass, it was a hit of pot. He made his mistake, apologized and it's time to move on. I'll tell you what, if Kellogg wants to sit on such a high horse… fine… Monday morning lets drug test every Kellogg corporate official. I'm talking every middle manager up to the CEO, let's screen them all for every drug under the sun. If everyone passes then they can pull their sponsorship but if just one fails it sure would look a bit hypocritical now wouldn't it? I'm willing to bet we could find some stuff a lot more interesting then pot in the company pond. What say you Kellogg? Deal?

*don't bother telling me they're good, I know they're good, everything that is bad for you tastes great, I'll bet they would taste especially good when you're high… or so I've heard.

Wrestling Wreport: the impending doom edition

Normally on a weekend like this with matchups against two of the best wrestling teams in the country I would be quite stoked but not so for the duals against #6 Ohio State (tonight at 7) and #1 and defending national champ Iowa (Sunday @ 2). Penn State is without several starters and in wrestling (a sport you have 9.9 scholarships for 10 positions) if your starter goes down the cupboard is VERY bare. Throw in the fact that Penn State is a black hole at 197 and Heavyweight and well, it's going to be a pretty bad weekend for the good guys.

There are interesting matchups that should make it worth the 30 minute trip to State College:

At 125, #13 Brad Pataky is coming off probably his best weekend of wrestling and gets to face #4 Charlie Falck of Iowa.

At 133, #9 Jake Strayer, who is also coming off a pretty good outing besting the returning national champ, has the daunting task of facing #1 AND #2 in #2 Reece Humphrey of OSU and #1 Daniel Dennis of Iowa.

Normally I would be more apprehensive about such matchups but I have a lot of confidence in both Pataky and Strayer right now, I think they are Penn State's best wrestlers at this point.

At 174, well get a chance to see what true freshman #16 Quentin Wright is made of as he gets the 4^th-ranked wrestler in Jay Borschel of Iowa. Coincidentally he also gets erstwhile Penn State wrestler and current OSU 174 pounder Dave Rella, which should make for interesting off-the-mat conversation.

One more reason to hit the panic button is the status of Penn State's only undefeated wrestler, 149 pounder Bubba Jenkins who is still recovering from a sprained ankle and did not wrestle last weekend.

"(Saturday) I tried to move around and it didn't feel good at all," Jenkins said. "I think I'm a couple days behind where I thought I would be."

"We don't want to do that and that's why he didn't wrestle this weekend," Sunderland said. "Dual meets are one thing. But the end of the year focus is the Big Ten Tournament and national tournament. We have to keep the big picture in mind."

Emphasis mine – it's important that Jenkins is 100% because he would be facing #4 Lance Palmer of Ohio State and #1 Brent Metcalf of Iowa whom Jenkins lost to in the national finals last season, both of which are very physical wrestlers.

"I don't think I'm going to rush back, especially because I have Palmer and Metcalf," Jenkins said. "I have to be close to 100 percent to wrestle those guys. I don't know how close I will be Friday."

Even with Jenkins, Penn State has no chance against Iowa they are a machine. Nine of Iowa's ten starters are ranked, including two No. 1's. The aforementioned Brent Metcalf is No. 1 at 149 and Daniel Dennis is No. 1 at 133, Alex Tsirtsis is No. 2 at 141, Ryan Morningstar is No. 3 at 165, Phil Keddy is No. 3 at 184, Charlie Falck is No. 4 at 125, Jay Borschel is No. 4 at 174, Dan Erekson is No. 7 at HWT and Chad Beatty is No. 18 at 197. That's nine out of ten ranked with 7 of those in the top five. That's F-in impressive and even more so, they only have one senior in that group of ranked wrestlers. Yeah, Iowa is going to dominate Wrestling for the foreseeable future.

Inked: Penn State’s new guys

Not a lot happened on signing day which isn't necessarily a bad thing, Penn State managed to land everyone that promised their allegiance to the Blue & White. Thanks to Sporting News for doing all the leg work for me, here is a list of Penn State's signees:

Mark Arcidiacono, OL, 6-5, 289, St. Joseph's Prep, Holland, Pa.
Justin Brown, WR, 6-3, 210, Concord HS, Wilmington, Del.
Nate Cadogan, OL, 6-6, 260, Portsmouth (Ohio) HS
Glenn Carson, LB, 6-3, 220, Southern Regional HS, Manahawkin, N.J.
Curtis Drake, ATH, 6-0, 170, West Philadelphia Catholic/Philadelphia, Pa.
Curtis Dukes, RB, 6-2, 230, Indian River HS, Evans Mills, N.Y.
Brandon Felder, WR, 6-2, 167, Oxon Hill HS, Fort Washington, Md.
Anthony Fera, K, 6-2, 230, St. Pius X HS, Cypress, Texas
Frank Figueroa, OL, 6-4, 280, Edison HS, Alexandria, Va.
Garry Gilliam, DE, 6-7, 245, Milton Hershey HS, Carlisle, Pa.
Darrell Givens, DB, 6-0, 170, Lackey HS, Fort Washington, Md.
Adam Gress, OL, 6-7, 290, West Mifflin (Pa.) HS
Jordan Hill, DL, 6-3, 285, Steelton-Highspire HS, Steelton, Pa.
Gerald Hodges, DB, 6-3, 210, Paulsboro (N.J.) HS
Ty Howle, OL, 6-1, 290, Bunn HS, Wake Forest, N.C.
Shawney Kersey, WR, 6-2, 180, Woodbury (N.J.) HS
Christian Kuntz, WR, 6-4, 190, Trinity HS, Camp Hill, Pa.
Stephon Morris, DB, 5-9, 175, Eleanor Roosevelt HS, Greenbelt, Md.
Kevin Newsome, QB, 6-3, 215, Hargrave Military Academy, Portsmouth, Va.
Stephen Obeng-Agyapong, DB, 5-10, 180, John F. Kennedy HS, Bronx, N.Y.
Eric Shrive, OL, 6-7, 300, West Scranton HS, Scranton, Pa.
Devon Smith, WR, 5-7, 145, Westlake HS, White Plains, Md.
Sean Stanley, DL, 6-2, 250, Gaithersburg HS, Rockville, Md.
Derrick Thomas, ATH, 6-0, 175, Eleanor Roosevelt HS, Greenbelt, Md.
John Urschel, OL, 6-3, 270, Canisius HS, Williamsville, N.Y.
Michael Wallace, DB, 5-10, 180, Good Counsel HS, Silver Spring, Md.
Malcolm Willis, DB, 5-11, 205, Lackey HS, Marbury, Md.

The Nittany Lions landed some BIG offensive lineman and a plethora of wide receivers. In fact four of the players listed at WR are at least (listed at) 6-2 or taller which is more and more the trend in college football: big tall wide receivers. That's pretty important considering Penn State seems to be married to the spread with the signing of dual-threat QB Kevin Newsome and the loss of all three starting wide receivers to graduation. Don't be surprised if you see many of the guys listed as wide receivers or the ever vague "athlete" playing early on for the Nittany Lions, Penn State's depth at wide receiver is woeful. Offensive line and defensive back are other positions we could see some from this class contribute right away. Rankings be damned, Penn State did a great job of addressing glaring needs at WR, OL, and DB and signed a very highly touted dual-threat quarterback. They only signed one quarterback, and it would have been nice to land a couple more, but with one in the pipeline for 2010 they can concentrate on a top tier QB for next year's class.

LOI day is here: all rejoice at the choices of 18-year old kids

I once tried to cover recruiting here at TNL at least from a birds-eye perspective but found the task a little daunting and quite frankly, the guys over at BSD do a much better job than me so I gave it up altogether. Having said that, it is national signing day and Christmas for adults if you believe some news services. Really, if you want no better example, look at SportingNews.com's college football home page. It's plastered with all kinds of recruiting stories and if you want exhibit A of why recruiting is so dirty and sleazy to me, look no further than the main picture of undecided WR Marlon Brown on the front page. There's something a little… oh… less than straight about having a website geared toward grown men with a picture of an 18-year old football player with his shirt half off. Just sayin'.

While most articles tend to laud the exploits of Team A's talent or Coach B's recruiting prowess, there is one very interesting article that needs our attention.

Scouting services often miss best recruits

The Associated Press reviewed the top 50 recruits as named by Scout.com and Rivals.com from 2002-04, two services that essentially began as start ups but sold in recent years for tens of millions of dollars.

The AP found that when picking the 10 players with the brightest football futures, the services were right a little more than half the time, based on whether a player started 20 games or more in college, his recognition for awards or whether he made it to the NFL.

When it got to picks 11-50, the services were even more hit and miss.

I've been around for the exponential rise of Scout and Rivals and quite frankly I've always looked at them with a skeptical eye, and don't even get me started on sleezemaster Tom Lemming. At any rate though, Penn State is looking to turn in a very good recruiting class and they still have Linebacker Jelani Jenkins, wide receiver Justin Brown and defensive back Jim Noel on the radar screen. Jenkins is one of the best linebackers in the country (if you believe all the recruiting services) and would make a great exclamation point to this class.

Happy six more weeks of winter!

Yes!! It's that time of year again, when we torture small furry creatures by ripping them from their homes and applying nonsensical superstitions based on the weakest scientific evidence.

Scratched face in 3…2…1…

Punxsutawney Phil "emerged" (read: was dragged from a deep sleep) from his hole and saw his shadow which somehow translates into 6 more weeks of winter. Considering this winter has been A) freakin' cold as Hell and B) started early, it's a safe bet to say that we are in a weather pattern that will carry this horrible winter on for a long time. That or you can believe the prognostication skills of a marmot rodent of the family Sciuridae, either way we're probably in this thing for the long haul.

Happy Groundhog Day from TNL!

Remember: don't drive angry!

Wrestling Wreport

Before I get to a recap of this week's wrestling action I want to congratulate the Penn State Men's Basketball team on a signature win beating No. 9 Michigan State at the Breslin Center. I'm not a basketball fan but, like any sport, I root for Penn State and this is a huge win for this team. I missed the game for the Penn State – Wisconsin wrestling match and believe me, I would have rather watched the basketball game, but more on that later.

No.16 Penn State vs. No. 10 Minnesota and No. 17 Wisconsin

Penn State was all but assured two losses going into this weekend against two ranked opponents without the aid of their best wrestler Bubba Jenkins who was out with an ankle sprain. The team was already smarting from past injuries to the lineup but you simply don't replace Jenkins in any meaningful way and Penn State had no answer.

Despite being shorthanded though, the Lions nearly pulled off the upset against Minnesota, a match that came down to heavyweight. In fact Penn State held a 15-11 team score advantage going into 197, it's unfortunate that 197 and HW are gigantic wastelands of suck for this year's version of the Nittany Lions and Penn State left with an 20-18 loss.

Penn State laid a gigantic egg against Wisconsin losing 38-13 and wrestled probably some of the worst wrestling I've seen in a long, long time. Frank Molinaro continues to put in two periods of effort against ranked opponents; unfortunately there are three periods to each bout. When Molinaro is down he just seems to give up and he did a fine job of that this weekend losing 12-5 to 8^th ranked Mike Thorn of Minnesota and giving up a technical fall to top-ranked Zach Tanelli of Wisconsin. Sure you would expect losses in both cases but the effort just wasn't there once each bout was clearly decided.

Sure Penn State is fighting injuries and there are a lot of freshmen seeing mat time that wouldn't regularly be in the lineup but against Wisconsin there were many instances of Penn State wrestlers getting in deep on singles only to be countered and taken down, that's fundamental flaws you learn to avoid in grade school wrestling.

It wasn't all bad though; there were two shining examples of wrestlers peaking at the right time in 125 pounder Brad Pataky and 133 pounder Jake Strayer. Both wrestlers dominated this weekend especially against Minnesota. Pataky beat No.5 (and returning national champ) Zach Sanders of Minnesota 14-7. Brad picked an ankle on the opening whistle, took Sanders down and tilted him to his back twice to break out to an 8-0 lead.

From there Pataky cruised, kept the pressure on, and walked away with a 14-7 decision. I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Brad actually had a 14-6 major decision but the ref called a completely unnecessary and irrelevant stall call with 1 second left in the bout to make the score a 7-point victory instead of the 8-point major. Like every other sport, the Big Ten claims some of the WORST referees in Wrestling and this was a shining example, but I digress.

Jake Strayer also beat the 5^th-ranked wrestler in the nation besting Jayson Ness of Minnesota 4-3. Strayer used a first period takedown and escape (after a reversal) and strong defense to edge Ness.

Strayer nearly had Ness turned for backpoints but lost the hold and gave up the first period reversal. Jake also had a strong ride in the second period and built riding-time advantage but couldn't keep it in the third. Regardless, it was two complete matches from two of Penn State's best wrestlers and they are wrestling their best at the right time. Hopefully they can carry the momentum into the Big Ten's coming next month in early March.

Next Up: Penn State tackles a tough task in Ohio State Friday night and top-ranked Iowa Sunday at 2:00PM.