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Donald Trump apparently doesn't know Joe Paterno is dead

Sam Cooper
College football writer

Donald Trump seems confused.

The Republican presidential candidate made a campaign stop in Pittsburgh Wednesday night and made a rather strange reference to former Penn State head coach Joe Paterno, who passed away in 2012.

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“How’s Joe Paterno? We gonna bring that back? How about that whole deal,” Trump said in what appears to be some sort of reference to the Paterno statue, which was removed from campus in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky scandal.

Before bringing up Paterno’s name, Trump, seemingly pandering to the crowd (as all politicians do), brought up the fact that he went to school in Pennsylvania (he attended the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia) and knows a lot about the state.

Trump then asked, “Do we love Penn State?”

The crowd didn’t know how to react. Some even booed. Trump didn’t seem too aware that Pitt fans outweigh PSU fans in Pittsburgh by a pretty sizeable margin, so bringing up Paterno and the Nittany Lions wouldn’t do much to sway the crowd.

It didn’t take long for Trump to recover.

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“We love Penn State but we love Pittsburgh, right?” he said.

The reaction was a bit warmer that time.

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Sam Cooper is a contributor for the Yahoo Sports blogs. Have a tip? Email him or follow him on Twitter!