I remember that PSU would make the claim that the Football program essential underwrote all the other sports at the University. We’re about to find out the extent of the Truth in that statement as I expect that football will be shut down for at least one season.
The longer the trustees drag their feet on developing their plan for regaining control of the football program the more likely the NCAA (or possibly the Big Ten Conference) will do it for them.
I would like to see the Big Ten kick PSU out. When PSU eventually re-establishes the program they should probably be forced to play as a Div 1 A-A or Div II. Without a conference schedule that will be the best that they can do. The program will necessarily shrink to one of controllable proportions.
Next problem is to get rid of the bloat on the PSU Board of Trustees. It’s too large to be an effective decision-making body.
I hesitate to say this, because, as an FSU graduate, it will sound like a self-serving plan, but I believe that every Penn State football victory from the time of the first Sandusky allegation onward should be vacated. Joe Paterno would not have been able to survive as head coach if we knew then what we know now, so he shouldn’t be credited with victories he wouldn’t have earned if his actions (covering up for Sandusky) had been uncovered sooner.
This is only fair. When my Seminoles were found to have had some players who cheated on an online exam, we self-reported and implemented our own penalties. The NCAA response was to go a step further and vacate all of Bobby Bowden’s victories involving any of those players. In fact, those players were retroactively determined to be ineligible from the moment that they cheated.
In the Penn State case, I believe that Joe Paterno should likewise be retroactively determined to be ineligible to coach from the moment that he covered up Sandusky’s crime.