In what will be the first of many Penn State hating stories, Rivals.com National Senior Writer Tom Dienhart has written an asinine and illogical article titled "Penn State Assumes Undeserved Role as Contender." So as not to let bad internet writing go unnoticed, I wrote a quick rebuttal to Mr. Dienhart's column below.

An open letter to Tom Dienhart, Rivals.com national senior writer:

Your recent article on Penn State's undeserved nature as a title contender was a  rambling display of bad logic and flawed facts. You made some charges and insinuations which damage your credibility as a sports writer. You failed to discuss any good football analysis or research (the kind which Rivals.com was built on), instead relying on stereotypes to shape your anti-Penn State thesis. But because my opening paragraph is so full of vitriolic accusations, I would like to clarify my position that your article lacks merit and substance.

Your basic argument goes as follows: Forget the records, forget results - an undefeated Big 10 team does not deserve a shot at the BCS title game. You believe Penn State does not deserve to be a national contender for the title game because of 1) the Big 10's weaknesses, 2) the bad performances by Ohio State in the last two BCS title games, and 3) the purported strength of other national teams. You support your thesis with the following three points: 

Point 1: If you had to rank college football teams, the rankings would look like this:

• 1. Texas
• 2a. Florida
• 2b. Georgia
• 2c. USC
• 2d. Alabama
• 2e. Texas Tech
• 3. Penn State

Point 2: Because Joe Paterno is used to coaching undefeated teams that get left out of title games, he shouldn't be bothered by an undefeated PSU being left out of the BCS title game.

Point 3: As Ohio State failed to play a "good game" in the past BCS title games, the Big 10 doesn't deserve to have a team play in the title game anymore. You further supplement this point by stating: "If you've seen one slasher flick, you've seen them all."

With Dienhart around, who needs to mock the BCS anymore?

Tom, instead of writing an article about football strategy, team strength, or match ups, you focused on a minuscule test sample and broad generalizations to make a incendiary claim. Because of this tremendously weak logic, I am not quite sure where to begin hacking away at your article. But I guess I have to start somewhere. 

First: Where the hell is your football analysis? An article studying the merits of Penn State versus Texas/Florida/Alabama would have been far more useful. Maybe (with your vast Rivals.com resources) you could have dealt with the strong PSU defense and how it matches up against the record setting Texas and Texas Tech offenses. But instead you spoke in broad terms which belied no knowledge of the college football game, bringing Penn State down because of something which has no correlative significance to the 2008 Nittany Lions (namely, the 06-07 Buckeye's performance in the BCS title game). Using your logic, the 2008 Texas Longhorns should somehow be penalized because of Oklahoma's two consectuve Fiesta Bowl losses. Obviously this makes no sense.

Second: I find it hard to believe that you really will stand behind what you wrote in this article. Are you telling me that when it comes down to voting, your going to take a 1 or 2 loss SEC/PAC 10/Big 12 team over an undefeated Penn State every time? You're the senior editor at Rivals, have some self respect. Even more, we're only three fourths of the way through the season. What if Florida loses again - are they still better than a zero loss PSU team? I hope you don't have a vote in any kind of ranking system...

Third: How can you make such a one-sided claim about Penn State? Didn't someone ever teach you that its more effective to argue both sides of a story and then claim your side is better? I assume you don't know that Penn State smashed an Oregon State team that promptly beat USC, so let me tell you a little about this game. Penn State used a multi-faceted attack to overrun the Beavers and also held the dynamic Oregon State offense to 14 points. This same Beaver offense ran roughshod over USC three weeks later, jamming the ball down Pete Carroll's throat and exposing the lack of concentration that USC brings to games against medium level competition. But I agree Tom, I think Penn State should be penalized because the Big 10 isn't that solid. Teams shouldn't be judged through win/loss records or head to head competition, everyone knows that.

The BCS is an imperfect system, but it isn't so dumb to take your argument to heart. The BCS rewards undefeated teams in major conferences, which Penn State may end up being. So instead of judging teams through clichéd and nonsensical criteria, I would encourage you to allow the season to play out and let college football teams prove themselves. Until then, stop repeating age old stereotypes and start doing some real football research.