Paterno: No agenda at QB

Associated Press

STATE COLLEGE, Pa.

Removing his new pair of glasses, Joe Paterno couldn’t resist getting in a playful dig at the assembled reporters parsing his every word.

Offseason eye surgery has Penn State’s 83-year-old head coach seeing as clearly as ever this spring practice. In fact, he said he doesn’t really need glasses anymore, but his doctor wants him to wear them outside to protect his eyes.

“I can read my notes without any glasses, and it says here, ‘Keep your patience with these guys,”’ he joked to reporters when asked how he was adjusting to the new set he now dons with much thinner glasses than the Coke bottle-thick spectacles he was known for wearing.

Maybe he’ll also get a better look at the candidates vying to become the Nittany Lions’ new starting quarterback.

Daryll Clark is gone, hoping for an NFL berth after rewriting the school record book for quarterbacks after two years as the starter.

Kevin Newsome could be the early leader to take over after spending his freshman season last year as the top backup. Third-stringer Matt McGloin may be in the mix, along with Paul Jones, a promising recruit who graduated from high school in December to enroll at Penn State this semester.

And that’s not even including another top QB recruit in Robert Bolden, who is expected to enroll over the summer.

The talent is there, but experience is sorely lacking — at least compared to the savvy Clark. That’s why the Nittany Lions will just spend the spring trying to get the new signal-callers acclimated to their new, possibly expanded roles. There’s no timetable to naming a starter, Paterno said.

“We’re going into the season with the idea that we’ve got some really good prospects and we’ll see what happens from there, but there’s no agenda really,” he said.

As he typically does once each spring, Paterno threw open the doors to practice to reporters for the first 20 minutes, with the team mainly in position drills.