Penn State Death Penalty 4.0

The NCAA took the hammer to the Penn State football program this morning.  The total damage as is follows: 4-year bowl ban, a total of 65 scholarship players for 4 years, all wins from 1998-2011 have been vacated (111), and a $60M fine, $12M as a yearly minimum payment.  Here’s the kicker:  Any player can leave, play this year, and not count toward another school’s total scholarship count.  So not only do incoming freshmen have no shot of playing a bowl their entire career, and the class of 2013 only have their senior year eligible for post-season, but any player can leave, play immediately and not take a scholarship away at their new school.  At least SMU was able to “start-over” after one year.  After 4 years, do you think State will be able to get any 3-stars?  The statue, the vacated wins, the fine, even the scholarships hurt.  But programs need players, and not only will just about every D-1 player leave, but State won’t get any talent for at least 4 years.  There is no death and start-over.  Their program will be untouchable for at least 5 years.  There will be frat flag-football teams playing at Fred Beekman Park at Ohio State who have more talent than Penn State will put on the field for the next five years.

At their recent best, they were 10-11 win program, a New Year’s Day fixture, but not in the overall class of Ohio State, Michigan, Wisconsin and now Michigan State, not to mention the SEC bests, and the Big 12 and Pac-12 big boys.  They were a nice 3 to 4 star program that “did it the right way.”  Now Penn State’s program is dead and will be fighting Indiana for the Leaders basement for years to come.  Like I have said when this story broke; This is the worst thing ever and there are no winners.  At least the money goes towards child abuse victims and relief.

The Big Ten also came down on PSU, making their program ineligible for the B1G Championship for 4 years and not allowing Penn State to receive their share of the B1G’s revenue.