Penn State Football: Sanctions Will Devastate Nittany Lions Recruiting for Years

Penn State dodged the Death Penalty Monday morning, but the punishments handed down might be worse.

The president of the NCAA Mark Emmert announced that Penn State will have to pay a $60 million fine, serve a four-year postseason ban and must vacate all wins from 1998-2011. Emmert showed his displeasure for the entire situation.

"

Mark Emmert reiterating "no one feels good about this" regarding the #NCAA sanctions on #PSU

— Rivals.com (@Rivals) July 23, 2012"

And as far as recruiting goes, Penn State will lose 10 scholarship signees per year for four years and then have a reduction of 20 players on the roster.

So to simplify it, Penn State will have a signing class of 15 rather than 25, and they will have 65 players on their roster instead of 85. To make matters worse, any player can transfer immediately without sitting out.

So what does that do for recruiting moving forward? In theory, this is actually worse than the death penalty. Though Penn State will still be able to compete on the football field, they won't be able to generate revenue because of the fine, which was equivalent to the average annual revenue of the  program, which makes the future of Penn State football unstable.

Before four star defensive lineman Greg Webb and four star cornerback Ross Douglas decomitted from Penn State, the Nittany Lions had the 14th best recruiting class according to ESPN's rankings. Expect the program to drop significantly in the rankings after losing those athletes, along with whoever else decides to withdraw their verbal.

How many of Penn State's now 12 verbal commitments are willing to sacrifice their postseason and still play football at Penn State? Commits Christian Hackenberg and Adam Breneman are doing their best to make sure this class does stay intact, but there's only so much you can do after such harsh penalties.

Following the actions of Jerry Sandusky and these sanctions handed down by the NCAA, prestige isn't exactly a good selling point for Penn State anymore.

It's a long way to the bottom, but unfortunately for the Nittany Lions, they hit rock bottom in a matter of seconds. Expect it to take several years to get back to the top.