Filed Under » Penn State Nittany Lions

New Penn State head coach Bill O’Brien reassured the Nittany Lion fan base today that he will do his best to keep in place what the late Joe Paterno built at the university.

“I can’t be Joe Paterno. There was only one Joe,” said O’Brien. “But I will do all I can to honor him and I can’t tell you how proud I would be to die here in State College 43 years from now of complications from lung cancer. But, again, I’m not Joe. Maybe I’ll die sooner.”

O’Brien’s wife stepped forward then to say that there are possibly other ways her husband could honor Paterno and that she hopes he doesn’t die soon and maybe even outlives the legendary Penn State coach, but O’Brien cut her off. “No, honey. You don’t know what you’re saying. I’m a Penn Stater now.”

Former Penn State players who were unhappy with Paterno’s dismissal and the hiring of O’Brien say they felt the new coach struck the right chord with his comments.

“It’s exactly what I wanted to hear,” former Penn State running back Franco Harris said. “Bill O’Brien plans to die.”

Penn State has hired a new football coach, ending a nationwide search for someone who is totally not, to the best of their knowledge, a pedophile.

“It was important to us that we got this right,” said Penn State president Rodney Erickson. “There was intense pressure on us to not hire a disgusting human being, as was there a desire internally to do the same. We are confident our new coach is not a psychopath or pervert in any way.”

Longtime head coach Joe Paterno was fired in November in the wake of child sexual abuse charges against his former defensive coordinator, Jerry Sandusky. The University has been scrambling since then to repair its image and assure fans and the local community that it will try its best to not employ, associate itself closely with, or cover for pedophiles.

A Penn State search committee has been pouring over candidates for weeks and is satisfied the new coach is not loathsome to his very core.

“We don’t have another Jerry Sandusky here. I am fairly confident saying that,” said acting athletic director David Joyner. “We asked this guy almost every possible way if he was a pervert or if he was attracted to kids. He said no every time. Not once did he pause or clarify his answer or make anyone retch like Sandusky did during his Costas interview. It gave us a good feeling.”

Penn State receivers coach Mike McQueary will miss the team’s home game on Saturday due to threats he has received due to his role in a child rape scandal. State College, PA, police say they are working on a list of suspects.

“Currently, we think everyone in the world had a pretty good motive to threaten Mike McQueary with bodily harm,” said Dale McConnell, State College police chief. “This is a guy who witnessed a child being raped by a grown man and did almost nothing about it. So, yeah, we currently have about 7 billion suspects. Now I guess it’s just about going door-to-door and making phone calls to narrow down the list.”

McConnell says he is also a suspect in the case.

“As you can imagine, as a human being, this whole scandal has filled me with immense sadness and rage,” said the police chief. “There was a brief period yesterday where I blacked out in a fit of rage and may have called Mike and told him I want nothing more than to pistol whip him. Although I’m pretty sure it was Jerry Sandusky I called then. I guess I’ll check the phone records.”