Matt Millen Still Defending Joe Paterno, Penn State

In the wake of the Freeh Report that was released on Thursday morning, which presented damning evidence against Penn State University and former head coach Joe Paterno, there still seem to be a segment of people unwilling to blame Paterno.

Matt Millen, an ESPN analyst who played football at Penn State before going on to an NFL career as a player and later a team executive, is one of those people. Millen was on SportsCenter Thursday to discuss the findings, offering up some genuinely terrible comments and thoughts on the situation.

When the story first broke last year, Millen was one of many Penn Staters who defended Paterno, and he continues to defend his former coach even after the latest findings.

“In terms of the program itself, this was a very pristine program,” Millen said on SportsCenter, to which I immediately blurted from my couch, “THE HELL IT WAS!” There is no form or fashion to call the Penn State program “pristine” after the findings of this report.

To make it worse, Millen went so far as to say Paterno’s legacy shouldn’t be tarnished, saying, “He made a mistake. Does that discount all the positives he did over 50 years?”

Yes, Matt Millen, it should. Shame on you for even thinking that.

Shame on ESPN for taking advantage of Millen in this situation as well, and for even putting him on the air to say these kind of things for a second go-round. It’s understandable to want to have a reaction from someone connected to the program, but this is well beyond “conflict of interest.”