Note that both the NCAA and B1G sanctions were by "consent decree".... i.e. they were negotiated, rather than unilaterally imposed (as the NCAA would sort of like you to think).

I get the vibe that the announcement this morning and the leak (hyped with "unprecendented sanctions", and "so bad that the death penalty would've been prefereable") was all
contrived. PSU wants to take the bitter medicine and get this behind them. They needed this to appear as though these sanctions were fairly imposed by an outside entity.

PSU can in no way restrict studnet athletes from pursuing a transfer.
Other schools need only inform PSU of intent to contact a PSU athlete (I'm thinking this applies to FB only).

http://collegefootballtalk.nbcsports.co ... t/related/

It's a 4 yr. punishment.

New Coach O'Brien may struggle in the recruiting arena per the sanctions. Then some fans will say, had Joe survived or one of his assistants got appointed, the winning tradition would go on.

What happened from the NCAA/B1G is no shock.

So does Penn St. now hold the record for longest losing streak at 111 games in a row, breaking Prairie View's record of 89?

_________________

WRANGLERS 153-55-1 CVFL CHAMPS '04 '05 '09 '12

NFL CHAMPS '29 '30 '31 '36 '39 '44 '61 '62 '65 '66 '67 '96 '10

BW/WAC/MWC CHAMPS '77 '82 '85 '88 '89 '91 '92 '93 '99 '12
'08 NCAA BASEBALL CHAMPS

I was actually wondering something similar today. We only ever talk about a school forfeiting wins. Do they forfeit the losses too? Does Paterno lose all those wins but have to keep all those losses? That'll sure kill the win percentage.

And ironically, ESPN pointed out last night, the NOW the last PSU win was in 1997, and the starting QB in that game was none other than Mike McQueary.

Penn State "vacates" the wins; their opponents during the timeframe do not pick up an extra win each. It punishes Penn State but is not aimed to inflate opponent wins.

Not sure about that. I thought "vacated" means that they ae not credited with a win, but not sure about the other team's loss....

But then, there is this....

One time I was reading about Joe Paterno's win total, and Penn State had lost a bowl game to Oklahoma by a 14-0 score.
Oklahoma was later found to have used an ineligible player (I think actually, the player was retro-actively pronounced ineligible by the NCAA),
and so the NCAA determined that Oklahoma (in their eyes) did not win the game.

The story said that Joe Paterno told the NCAA that PSU would not accept a win (perhaps it was to be a win by forfeit),
since he wasn't too big of a fan of "revisionist history".
So all of this makes me think that in NCAA record-keeping, they possibly (in some cases) transfer the victory to the losing squad....


Last night on ESPN a former PSU player commented that "If somebody tries to tell me those games never happened, I'll ask them why I have this plate in my neck !"

"Vacated" means it does not count as a win or loss for either.

Vacated wins
Think of A Win not as a game result, but a prize you get at the end of the game: A shiny big W trophy for your mantle. A loss would be a small little L trophy as a symbol of your shame. What happened in the game happened.

When the NCAA makes you vacate wins, they show up to your place, take the W's off the mantle and melt them down. They don't give them to the other guy. He still has his L's.

NCAA boundries
While no specific NCAA rule was broken, the NCAA had a situation that demonstrated Penn State had a clear Lack of Institutional Control.

When a university/athletic department puts "Winning" ahead of "following the rules," it's LOIC. This wasn't because a criminal act occured. This was Penn State having a culture where the program came first ahead of the mission of PSU and the NCAA.

LOIC is to differentiate from "your coach broke a rule, don't let it happen again" and "your SCHOOL knowingly broke rules, willingly and eagerly." PSU's actions showed they'd knowingly and willingly break rules to prevent their football team from losing ground in recruiting and PR.

That's why the wins were vacated (Despite no rule being broken). The NCAA has to correct the culture at Penn State, and it's one that deified Paterno, so they smashed the false idol.

It doesn't open pandora's box; Baylor wasn't hammered because Dotson shot Dennehy, they were hammered because Bliss tried to cover-up his violations in the wake of it. That's LOIC. And the penalties were similar to PSU's (loss of revenue, recruiting rights, a post-season ban and the coach got a show-clause). MTSU had a WBB player stab and kill a teammate. No NCAA penalties.

The student-athletes did nothing wrong
I agree that the four-year death penalty discussed (and avoided), the bowl ban and loss of scholarships is unfair to the kids.
The NCAA is built on the idea that they are providing education through sports. So why have less scholarships?

How about instead of the bowl ban and scholarship reduction (fine/vacate penalties are fine)

Why not ban PSU from playing OOC home/neutral site games for four years? True road games only, and no guaranteed money can be accepted. You got a contract for Buffalo, Akron, Bowling Green, Temple, Rutgers, Virginia, Toledo and UMass? You're going to their place now. That cuts their gameday football revenue by 1/2.

TV ban for four years! No TV evenue or BCS check. That's half their total revenue right there. Now they'd making $15 million on football instead of $60 million.

And finally, no recruiting period for two years, but you still award your 85 scholarships. In otherwords, if you got 55 guys coming back after they can transfer/decommit, you gotta give the best 30 kids who come to walk-on tryouts a scholarship.

Take away the money, and leave the scholarships and you've got what the NCAA pretends to be: Providing educational opportunities through athletics.

_________________
1897-1898 | 1900-06 | 1926-27 | 1929-30 | 1939 | 1942

JPS, the other guy doesn't still officially have his "L".

Vacated wins do not "officially" count as a loss for the opponent. It's not a one-sided forfeit.

Say Penn State beats Ohio State by whatever score. Ohio State's record for the season was 8-4. Penn State's wins are "vacated". "For the official record book, (maybe with some footnote), Ohio State's official record does NOT remain 8-4. NOR does it go 9-3. Technically, it would be 8-3. It's as if the game was never played.
It helps the game loser in that the loss is no longer officially counted. It doesn't though, reward OSU with another win.

The logic: It would not make sense to say PSU did not win the game but OSU still lost.

For Penn State during the entire "vacated" period, "true on-the-field losses" shall count. All the wins are tossed, but are not converted into loses for the record.

Forfeit's which have been employed before and may still be applied, is when the game winner has to turn the victory over to the opponent, usually due to some cheating by the winner.

And all this is a bunch of nonsense to me, pretending all of what happened doesn't count 1 year or 13 years later. Michigan's fab 5 was in the final 4 in 92 and 93, vacate shmacate. You can achieve a logical punishment w/ firings, scholly cuts, fines, no bowls, no tv. No need for vacating. The Saints didn't vacate their games, neither did the Pats, it really f*cks up history books by doing that. You can put an * if you want, no need to vacate.

_________________

WRANGLERS 153-55-1 CVFL CHAMPS '04 '05 '09 '12

NFL CHAMPS '29 '30 '31 '36 '39 '44 '61 '62 '65 '66 '67 '96 '10

BW/WAC/MWC CHAMPS '77 '82 '85 '88 '89 '91 '92 '93 '99 '12
'08 NCAA BASEBALL CHAMPS

To play devils advocate, I think that is the point. One can argue that punishing in the present is the problem...because you are just hurting people who have no connection to any of the problems. Take PSU: if all the PSU employees that took part in the cover up and of course the molestation crimes, then why punish the current players or coach for crimes and infractions done before they were even part of the school? But with vacating wins, etc, you go back in time and punish those who were responsible. Paterno had the FBS wins record. But because of his role in covering up a problem within his program, rather than turn Sandusky in to the police, the punishment was retroactive by removing all wins he achieved. The notion is that had he been caught then, he would have been fired by the state, and not on the field for those wins.

All that said, the casualties still exist: all the players who were on those teams lose their wins. So you might see stats like QB numbers, or RB stats...but none of those players from 1998-recent will have those wins under their belts that they won on the field.

There are no winners in any of the punishments. But to have no punishment would have been the bigger mistake.

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Quinn, For the most part agree with everything including your statement of “There are no winners in any of the punishments. But to have no punishment would have been the bigger mistake.”

I disagree and it drives me crazy to hear this punishment is impacting the current players at Penn State.

First up the current players are not having their scholarships revoked and this is the primary reason each Penn State player is or should be attending the school. Besides the NCAA is allowing any player to jump to another school without penalties and the players do have a choice to stay and get and education at Penn State or go play football at another school to enhance your chances at a pro level someday.

There is absolute no punishment on the players at Penn State. If any player has the desire to play Penn State football the football regular season will continue to be played.

Ok then what about the players missing out on the bowls and the chance to play for a national title.

College football should be secondary with colleges having education as the primary purpose or highest priority. The problem or issue is this is not the case in major college football with the huge over the top revenue that is generated today college sports world especially men football and basketball.

What major colleges should do and probably will not is separate education from the big revenue sports.

Pay players to play college football and let these major college programs be minor leagues for the NFL. If any player wants to attend class and get an education then so be it, otherwise, they are there for the primary purpose of getting paid for playing a sport.

The NCAA could keep the regulations of varsity sports and let the major college programs appoint an NFL type commissioner to deal with issues in college football.

In the case of Penn State scandal, the commissioner would have dealt with the punishments and most likely fired and fined the guilty parties including the Penn State football business entity. The academic side of Penn State would and should not have been impacted by this scandal if we were treating college sports as the big business.

If this were a NFL scandal, there would be no one putting the entire NFL team on probation and preventing the innocence players or team from playing in post season. The NFL would simply have fined and fired the guilty and the US courts would do their job to punish and imprison the guilty.

The problem in today’s high stakes world of big money college sports, everyone continue to try to assume this is not big business and the colleges can maintain sports and do their primary job of education students at the same time.

Less face it the cover issues with Penn State occurred primary to ensure no revenue was impacted. In the old days of college sports, this scandal would have been exposed and swiftly dealt with in the open without the concern of losing huge profits.

Lash, when the current players including freshmen were originally recruited and sold on the school, they did not know that their would be scholarship limits on the program, which will mean a weakened team. Penn St. does not have the scholarships, so they can't add quality players, which makes the team less likely to compete for a title of any kind. That hurts the current players.

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