Penn State Scandal: Whoever Replaces Paterno Has Chance to Do Something Special

Have you ever in your lifetime seen a scandal in sports as horrific and as terrifying as the Jerry Sandusky/Penn State one currently in the news?

Probably not, because there aren't a whole lot of things worse than what that man did, and there aren't many worse things than covering it up. 

The story, however, has completely gotten out of control, with Joe Paterno's press conference being wrongly canceled, his son trying to set up an off-campus conference and then hundreds of students showing up at JoePa's house to support him. 

Whatever way you feel about those actions, one thing is clear: It's absolute craziness. Something like this just has never happened in sports before. 

And unfortunately for Penn State, it still remains to be seen whether or not the Nittany Lions sports program will rebound from this tragedy. 

It appears that legendary head coach Joe Paterno won't be back for next football season, and if the rest of the athletic department isn't cleared out after all this I would be extremely surprised.

That means whoever replaces Paterno as head coach is going to come into a program that's in a lot of trouble. Most would cower away from that chance, but think about this:

There's hardly any risk in taking the position.

No one's expecting Penn State's athletic program to recover from this. Recruiting is going to suffer. Attendance is going to suffer. Team support is going to suffer.

The expectations for the new coach will almost surely be low, but the potential reward is sky high.

If the new coach comes in, absolutely cleans house, establishes a professional environment with lots of high-profile, high-character guys, says all the right things and somehow keeps the program's winning ways, he'll look like a magician. 

Penn State is surely the laughing stock (or whatever the laughing stock equivalent is of "disgustingness") of college football, and if someone, somehow, saved the program, it would be amazing. 

The coach surely have a lot of work to do, and it won't be easy. However, as long as the new head coach has any common sense at all, it will be a position of low risk and high reward.