Penn State Football: Could NCAA Sanctions Actually Be Reduced?

I'm sure you have heard about the Penn State sanctions once or twice throughout the week (probably a lot more than that).

If you have isolated yourself from the outside world for the last week, the NCAA gave Penn State a four-year bowl ban, five years probation, took away scholarships, and are allowing any current player to transfer immediately if he decides he doesn't want to deal with the mess.

While everybody is considering this equal or nearly equal to a death sentence, head coach Bill O'Brien may have provided the university with a silver lining. It may be the slightest of hope, but any positive update is good for the Penn State community right now. (Via Richard Scarcella of the Reading Eagle) 

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Bill O'Brien said #PennState has chance to reduce sanctions if the NCAA thinks the school is complying.

— Richard Scarcella (@nittanyrich) July 27, 2012"

Is O'Brien just grasping at straws at this point, hoping for some sort of miracle? Who knows?

I do know that according to reports, Penn State faced a possible four-year death penalty if the school did not agree to the current sanctions. That would have banned football from the Penn State program, and likely would have been worse than the penalties the program ultimately received. So in a way, the NCAA has already reduced the sanctions.

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The alternative was really far worse. Penn State president Rodney Erickson said in the interview with ESPN. The [death sentence] was a possibility. Various numbers were tossed around, four being the highest. The [death sentence] is traumatic for everyone. It's traumatic for the student-athletes involved. It's traumatic for the university. It's traumatic for the university, particularly smaller ones, kind of like we are here in central Pennsylvania.

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This is really uncharted territory for everybody involved. Usually, the NCAA takes much longer when deciding what the sanctions will be, and it usually don't get involved when a rule isn't clearly broken in the NCAA rulebook.

Maybe further reduction is possible, but at this point, nobody is sure what will happen with the Penn State program.