Thread for Hippos to mock Penn State

[MDS]

tone deaf college students

http://deadspin.com/penn-state-students-celebrate-lifted-sanctions-chant-j-1632254408

[Geowhizzer]

Editorial from the Hazelton Standard-Speaker (here's a link, but they want $10 for the privilege of reading it):

Let's not pretend this is a miraculous outcome.

Everyone saw this coming.

Last year, when the NCAA greatly reduced the scholarship restrictions that were supposed to cripple Penn State's football program for the crime of standing a bit too close to Jerry Sandusky's evil, you started to hear the rumors. The NCAA's bowl ban on the Nittany Lions that was supposed to keep them out of postseason play through the 2015 season was on life support. Even then, we knew it wouldn't survive 2014.

Lo and behold Monday, on the recommendation of athletic integrity monitor George Mitchell, the former Democratic U.S. senator from Maine, Penn State got its bowl games back. Effective immediately.

It got its scholarships back, too. Every one of them. Effective at the start of the 2015 season.

Rest in peace, the punishment worse than death.

In the wake of the Freeh Report and with the college football world still outraged by Sandusky's actions, the NCAA wanted to make a statement back in 2012 when it punished Penn State for its handling of the Sandusky case. A bowl ban. Epic fines. Scholarship reductions that would bury the program for a decade. No doubt, NCAA president Mark Emmert and his executive committee intended to crush Penn State.

Problem is, for all the grandstanding what happened in State College, and all the fingers wagged and all the "Tsk tsks" shot the university's way, nobody at the NCAA could guarantee they'd have done things any differently.

Talk all you want about progress with the recommendations of the Freeh Report and obedience to a consent decree. That's why Penn State is essentially free and clear today.

Essentially and ironically, the NCAA shot the final bullet into this rotting, stinking corpse of a punishment last week, when it released its new policy on how athletic departments should handle reports of sexual assaults.

They titled the handbook "Addressing Sexual Assault and Interpersonal Violence," and basically, the NCAA executive committee determined that athletic departments should just stay out of sexual assault investigations. Really. Cooperate with authorities? Sure. But "manage, direct, control or interfere with" investigations? Absolutely not.

Let's say, for argument's sake, that this policy was in place back in November of 2011. Think Graham Spanier or Tim Curley or Gary Schultz would have any trouble arguing they were simply trying not to mange, direct, control or interfere with an investigation into Sandusky?

Let's also — you know, for the sake of argument — say this policy stood in place in 2001, when by every account of this horrific story Mike McQueary witnessed some kind of inappropriate behavior between Sandusky and a prepubescent boy in a shower stall at the Lasch Building. The then-graduate assistant coach told head coach Joe Paterno some version of that story the next day. What would the NCAA policy recommend Paterno do from there?

"Report immediately any suspected sexual violence to appropriate campus offices for investigation and adjudication," of course.

Which by any reasonable interpretation of accepted history is what Paterno did when he told Curley and Schultz, the university vice president who at the time oversaw the campus police department.

You can't make this stuff up, really.

Except, well, the NCAA did make this punishment up as it went along. Pandering, with force, to a justified public demand for answers. Looking to change its own image from an organization that slaps wrists for academic shortcomings, practically ignores recruiting violations and quite frankly has been making billions on the popularity of its student-athletes.

Now, the NCAA is in full retreat mode, practically admitting it can't even ask its members' athletic departments to act any differently than Penn State's did. It published a 50-page handbook on proper responses for athletic departments to suspected sexual assaults when five words would do: Call the police, damn it. For the NCAA, this isn't exactly the decisive display of leadership it expected from Penn State's athletic department two years ago.

Yet, as Penn State has been made almost entirely whole again, isn't it fair to think the NCAA hasn't done enough?

By its own standard, the NCAA has to hand back to Joe Paterno all the wins the sanctions took away from him. He has to have his win total restored to 409, and his name has to be etched on the top of the list of winningest coaches in big-time college football history. Whether you think Paterno did as much as he could to rid the streets of the Sandusky scourge is now no longer relevant. The NCAA says he did exactly what they'd ask anybody in his position to do.

The worst-kept secret in college football became a reality Monday. Except, the organization that, in unprecedented fashion, has stricken most every sanction in arguably the most harsh penalty it has ever handed out has strangely been mum on whether it will do what it can to make Paterno whole again. Connect the dots they drew on the page, and it's easy to see they have an obligation to do just that.

So much for a punishment worse than the Death Penalty being used to straighten up a wayward football program. The only mess cleaned up at the end of the day is the one made by Mark Emmert, and there is still some mopping to do.

I'm interested in seeing Igy and Temple Todd's reaction to this.

[smeags]

internet preaching is awesome.

[rjs246]

Penn State is not good this year. That is all.

[ice grillin you]

ha

luckily either is the big ten

[MDS]

nothing like losing at home to northwestern

i heard some loser on wip say yesterday that penn state is going to the rose bowl. ha.

[PhillyPhreak54]

Yeah northwestern has been zesty for awhile now...this is a bad look for penn st

[MDS]

not as bad as covering up the repeated actions of a serial pedophile

but yes

[rjs246]

Penn State is not good this year. That is all.

[ice grillin you]

Yeah northwestern has been zesty for awhile now...this is a bad look for penn st

no one could have possible thought penn state was good this year right?

they are one of the worst teams in one of the worst fcs conferences ever

[PhillyPhreak54]

No PSU is not good...but losing to NW is extra bad.

[MDS]

Yeah northwestern has been zesty for awhile now...this is a bad look for penn st

no one could have possible thought penn state was good this year right?

FF

[PhillyPhreak54]

http://www.nj.com/middlesex/index.ssf/2014/10/sayreville_high_star_athlete_myles_hartsfield_taken_from_home_by_police.html

[SD]

This is about as bad of a game as you can play

[phattymatty]

http://pennstate.247sports.com/Bolt/Penn-State-bowl-projections-32624812

PSU-Miami at Yankee stadium would be pretty fun.