Penn State Scandal: Football Program Will Crumble Due to Severe NCAA Sanctions

Given what we all heard on Sunday and early Monday morning, Penn State was not expected to come out the NCAA press conference in good shape. Now that it is over and the penalties have been announced, I don't think anyone thought things would be as bad as they were. 

According to the official report released from the NCAA, the university was fined $60 million, vacated all football wins from 1998-2011, was placed on a four-year postseason ban and received a loss of scholarships during that time. 

In addition to those penalties, the NCAA has also waived the transfer window that makes student-athletes sit out a year if they decide to leave one school for another. 

All of this basically adds up to a fate worse than the "death penalty" that SMU suffered during the 1980s. We have seen the end of Penn State football as we know it, with little reason to think the program will ever recover. 

Looking at the sanctions levied against Penn State, how does a football coach—in this case, Bill O'Brien—possibly recruit anyone to come to play for that university?

Any blue-chip recruits interested in Penn State will look at the fact they won't be able to play in a bowl game until at least 2016-17 and decide to go somewhere else. 

Even when the postseason ban is over and Penn State can get back to offering the same number of scholarships as everyone else, what will the program look like?

Four years is a long time in college football. Athletes today are only going to look at what has happened lately. And with Penn State likely to suffer on the field in ways that we haven't seen from this program in decades, there is going to be almost no clamoring for top players to go to Happy Valley. 

On the football field, the best days of Penn State football are long gone. There might be a winning season here and there, but competing for conference championships is gone. 

Given everything that happened with that program over the last 14 years, perhaps things could have been a lot worse for Penn State. 

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