There are a lot of annoying websites in the world: Facebook, myspace, Perez Hilton, lolcats, match.com (sigh).

But for as annoying as these sites are, none of them can really compare to the newest evil that seems to be taking over the internets, and that's Twitter.  We can't remember a website dominating actual news channels like Twitter has since...well, we don't even know.  Somehow a bunch of celebrities wound up using it to update us on their activities, different organizations post updates about whatever they're doing and now college football coaches are using it as a recruiting tool -- and at the very least, a PR tool.  We can't wait to read about NCAA sanctions that limit coaches to 5 tweets per week.

And speaking of tweets, that's probably the thing we hate most about Twitter -- the name Twitter and the verb tweet.

Anyway, back the story. We came across this article earlier in the month before we had launched the site and have been sitting on it since. .:Tim Brewster Tweets for Talent:.

The article talks about how a few Big11Ten coaches are using Twitter these days to talk about what they're doing, how practices are going and where the program is heading.The article would have been pretty boring for us if it weren't for our favorite coach to hate, Rich Rodriguez. Yes, Rich is Tweeting. So is Tim Brewster of Minnesota, whose Twitter username play4brew comes off as something that might already be an NCAA violation. Also linked in the article is Ron Zook. Hey, if recruiting phenom Ron Zook is using it, then it must be legit, right?

The first thing you notice when reading these pages is that the coaches really let the 15 year old girl in them come out. With all those unnecessary exclamation points at the end of every tweet (ugh) its easy to see "big practice today!!" being spouted out with the same enthusiasm as your little sister tweeting "big sale at Hollister today omg!!!" RichRod and Brewster really seem to be getting excited about the whole thing. If you want to know for sure that either guy is "heading out to practice #3!" or want to know how awesome the weather is in Minnesota, you need to check these guys out.

Zook, on the other hand, is all business. While the other two guys are almost trying to remind us they are actually coaches and making sure people are excited for the season, Zook takes a more functional approach. Zook tells us how practice went, beyond just saying "great!" and links to a site with videos of the practices.  We really wanted to poke fun at all the guys using Twitter, but Zook actually seems to making good use of it. No talk of how great his program is or how much fun he is having, but rather actual info about what is happening. Imagine that.

Of course, after reading all these other coaches thoughts posted on Twitter, we got to wondering what Joe Paterno would say if he had a Twitter page. So we got to browsing and were amazed when we found the Joe Paterno Twitter*. It did not disappoint.

While we don't expect Joe to ever have a Twitter page, we could only imagine the things he would say.  Maybe he should hire an assistant (us) to Twitter for him.

*that is obviously not Joe Paterno's Twitter account.

Well, it's spring time. If you're a college football fan that means only one thing: Spring Games.

It's like a bonus home game.  If you're like us, it's one more chance to load up the RV, drive to State College and take part in the tailgate scene.  Of course, Penn State's home game isn't for another two weeks. Fortunately, there are 10 other teams in the Big11Ten that we can talk about and one of those, Michigan, had their spring game Saturday.

Michigan, as you may remember (and probably celebrated), had an abysmal season in 2008. It seemed like every Saturday night on the recaps you heard about how something Michigan had done that day was the worst thing since 1960-something. And frankly, we loved every minute of their demise.  We were never big fans of Rich Rodriguez and how he ended up in Michigan.

This past Saturday, Michigan fans had the opportunity to take the first real step in forgetting the 2008 season. An estimated 50,000 people showed up to watch the game in Ann Arbor -- a Michigan spring game record.

This article from MLive has the story and some of the details about what went down at the game.

The big question last season was who would be the Michigan quarterback, but this year it seems they have their man in Tate Forcier. We're going to take the high road on easy-to-make jokes right now. 'Ole Tate threw for 4 touchdowns, ran one in and will probably be the guy that you are sick of hearing about before the season even gets started. We can see it coming.

As for other teams' spring games, there are three more next week: Purdue, Indiana and Wisconsin.  The remaining teams will host their annual games on the 25th. Iowa doesn't have a spring game this year because of construction at Kinnick.

We'll track down any stories from those games and keep you updated.

This doesn't have much to do with college football in the traditional sense (tradional sense = at all), but when stories like this one catch our collective eye, we can't pass them up.  If you like stories about DUIs stemming from seemingly harmless trips on the ol' motorized barstool, read on...

In a couple of days the most over-covered event in America will take place. Every spring, hundreds of college athletes go from under the table Escalades and Rolex watches to gross amounts of cold hard cash in a matter of moments. The change happens in moments but it's the culmination of a lifetime of work that results in hearing your name called on NFL draft day. This year there are several Nittany Lions in the discussion, most noteably Aaron Maybin, Derrick Williams, Gerald Cadogan, A.Q. Shipley and Deon Butler. A few others, like Maurice Evans, Jordan Norwood, Mark Rubin and Kevin Kelly have also been mentioned in draft talk, but mostly as guys who will be picked up as free agents once the draft has ended.

Read on if you want to see where people think these guys will fall on draft weekend.

We wish we were writing about something more glamorous for our first “real” post on the Bloguin network, but alas, it is early April, and an intra-squad scrimmage is about as exciting as it gets right now.

Yes, the Blue and White lined up against each other on Saturday for a little gridiron action, and they invited the press. The CDT has a nice recap of the contest.

Overall, it looks like Daryll Clark had a nice outing, completing passes in the manner you'd hope your returning QB would, although it looks like Joe didn't let him get too much work in. True freshman Kevin Newsome looked shaky in the pocket, but showed some skill carrying the ball, and redshirt freshman Matt McGloin did okay, but it doesn't sound like his arm is all that strong. Then again, Morelli had a canon for an arm, and look where that got him:

All in all, we're just hoping Clark doesn't get injured next year. From all reports, Newsome appears to have the talent to eventually develop into a fine college QB, but we don't want to see him try to next year.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, masters of the obvious, mention that this year's receivers have some big shoes to fill. We'll count that as the understatement of the spring so far. Juniors Brent Brackett and Graham Zug bring solid experience to the position, but we can't expect them to just step in and make us all forget about Williams/Butler/Norwood. Luckily, they'll have speedy sophomores Derek Moye and Chaz Powell to help lighten the load. The nice thing about this group, as the PG points out, is that each member is over six feet tall (with Bracket at 6'6” and Moye at 6'5”). Last year's trio was a bit undersized, so the height may add a new dimension to the offense.

But as Bob Flounders from PennLive points out, it was not the offense that shined on Saturday, but the defense, especially the D-line. Of course this is nothing out of the ordinary for the Lions, but the D's dominance is probably even more enhanced by the inexperience of the O-line. With only two starters returning (Dennis Landolt and Stefen Wisniewski), the O-line might take some time to mesh. But as long as the defense plays better than it did in the Rose Bowl, things should be okay, especially with the non-conference opponents like these:

We make that joke like every two weeks, so get used to it.

Anyway, it's just nice to see some football being played, even if it is a light scrimmage in April. It's even better to be back writing about it. Back with more news later in the week.

Welcome!

For a lot of people, this will be the first time coming to We Want the Lion.

For one or two others, you may have stumbled upon us going through your old favorites list. You probably thought we died back in mid-January.

Before we get onto any more about the blog, we feel obligated to explain where we've been for the past 2+ months.  During the 2008 regular season we operated on blogspot.  Things were going smoothly, more people were visiting the site and then in November we were asked to join another website as featured blogger.

Feeling this would a great opportunity, we jumped in head first.  We did our thing there for a bit, but eventually decided it wasn't for us. There's really no need to get into details, but we feel that Bloguin offers just what we need, are thrilled to be here, and hope people can find their way back to us.

We apologize to anyone who was trying to follow us through all of this.  We know it's going to be an uphill battle to regain the readers and appreciate anyone taking the time to stop by and check us out.

Anyway, for you first-timers, as you can tell by the banner we are We Want the Lion.  We focus our writing on Penn State football, but also branch out into the other sports when we can. We also have a few tendencies like making random Top 5 Lists that may or may not result in insulting Stephen A. Smith. We really don't like that guy.

We're big fans photoshop too. Feel free to pass those along -- we'll probably post anything.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Exhibit C:

We'll do our best to keep you updated on the team, its players and have a little fun with game recaps. They're like a Sportscenter recap on speed. While we take the team seriously, we feel we're at our best when we're keeping things light, having a laugh and even poking fun at our own school, or even ourselves, once in a while.

If you want a to see our work in the past, you can find it here.  That will take you back to the blogspot edition of us, we'll get to work on moving that and all our other stuff into our archives here.