Sound off: What should be Penn State's fate?

[AJAY303]

No football for 10 years.

[Skyboxer]

Blow up the football program and start over. 1 year of no football then 5 to 10 year probation... No bowls obviously.

[cavsfan2]

Death Penalty

[Buckeyes_Doc]

I've never been a fan of screaming "DEATH PENALTY!!!" but I think shutting the Penn State program down for 1 or 2 years and cleaning house is the best thing to do, with or without NCAA involvement.

I feel bad for the current players, alumni, students, and recruits. Allow current players and recruits to transfer schools with no penalty and PSU should help financially with that, and help in any other way to assist the players.

[richiesbx137]

I really think it is very wrong what happened here, and I pray for the victims. If I was a student I would have walked away and transferred the perception is too damaging and to devastating and the way its done is very wrong and very terrible. I really think the football program needs to be punished, very similar to the death penalty I really believe it should be one year, it is that horrible. I know its bad and the student athletes are NOT INVOLVED in this case but it is too devasting as this story reached nationally and internationally. The NCAA needs to step in and deal very harsh damage the same with Miami this past season. Both of them should be treated with the death penalty. There are children involved and Penn State will not be the same ever again and for a very very long time. This is just as bad as SMU and Maddoff or even worse (because of its media coverage today). I think it will take more than 25 years to recover this, maybe even longer than this....It hurts every facet as a student in general. And I feel their pain, I am a college student as well and to me this is very wrong.

[RaychelSnr]

Quote: Originally Posted by chi_hawks

This is a tough one. Punishing the football team now penalizes the fans and student athletes, both groups who had no knowledge of these incidents and the cover ups. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a punishment that fits the crime right now. Sure, you could suspend the football team, but you have to ask yourself, who are you sending this message to? I'd like to see the school donate money, like in the tens of millions, to a charity of social organization that deals with battered and abused women/children. This would be a good start (and would actually have a positive impact).

This is a bad argument for one reason: It's never anyone's fault other than the people responsible when an NCAA program gets sanctioned. USC fans and Ohio State fans are being punished for stuff they didn't know about largely, so are/were the other players who probably had no idea. In this event you'd get to transfer out free of charge as with most NCAA cases and could play elsewhere immediately. Playing the 'it's not their fault' card just doesn't work ever...when a program is out of line, no matter if it's one or 50 people, it's out of line.

The NCAA is going to investigate and is going to be looking for a reason, any reason, to drop the hammer on PSU. One of their biggest gripes with PSU in Emmert's letter to the university is the lack of a centralized compliance office (and really a concern Paterno had too much power at the university). There's a good chance they'll find something.

[br329]

I don't think the NCAA should get involved but I really think PSU should consider suspending the program for a few years and allow the toxic culture that currently resides in "Happy Valley" to change completely.

[erod328]

Somewhere behind closed doors ESPN, the Big Ten, and PSU Board of Trustees are telling the NCAA that Penn State Football is too big to fail.