Sunday, July 22, 2012

JoePa Goes Into Storage

Christopher Weddle, Centre Daily Times via AP
They took the statue down at Penn State this morning and it sounds like the NCAA might take the program down tomorrow:

A source told CBS News correspondent Armen Keteyian that Penn State will suffer "unprecedented" punishment for its collective failure to report Sandusky, recently convicted on 45 counts of sexual abuse, to the proper authorities.

"I've never seen anything like it," the source told Keteyian, indicating that both the football program and the school itself would face sanctions.

Per Dodd, a person with knowledge of the process said there is a way to impact Penn State's competitive ability in football without applying the so-called “death penalty.” That term could be mere semantics by the time the NCAA sanctions are announced according to a source. Penn State, the source said, may prefer the death penalty.

A source confirmed for CBSSports.com that there are indications the penalties could be so unique they would be different than any previously applied by the NCAA. They could last beyond one season.

Dodd is Dennis Dodd of CBSSports.com, who has been covering the matter for the website. I don't know what sort of double-secret probation the NCAA has in mind, but the larger problem is that punishing the football program at Penn State is going will punish a lot more than the program itself. Penn State, like most major college football programs, relies on football revenue to cover the costs of other sports, especially non-revenue sports. We'll have to await the results tomorrow to know for sure, but if Penn State has to compete in the Big Ten with only half the number of scholarships, or a five-year bowl ban, it's going to be miserable for everyone involved.

1 comment:

Night Writer said...

Interesting. They draped a towel or blanket over the statue's head in the same way they do when shuffling a suspect into a police van.

I listened to the sanctions on the radio this a.m. as I drove to work, and they sounded about right (as I also mentally ticked off all the lawyer-talking points in the preamble). The most interesting point was expunging the wins from Penn State's record since 1998. I've always believed that Paterno was sticking around so long solely to get the record and was "neck-and-neck" with Bobby Bowden to the end. I wouldn't be surprised if the possibility of facing sanctions that might have cost him a couple of games (through lost scholarships or focus) weren't part of the equation when he decided to suppress and cover up Sandusky's doings. If so, justice is served.