Penn State Scandal: Why Mike McQueary Must Follow Joe Paterno out the Door

In a matter of days, the Penn State football program has gone from being a beacon of dignity to an utter cesspool. And worse, there seem to be very few people who are entirely guiltless in the Jerry Sandusky scandal

If there is a silver lining at the moment, it's that the key players in the case are starting to trickle out of the university. Athletic director Tim Curley and administrator Gary Schultz have both stepped down, longtime head coach Joe Paterno announced today that he will retire at the end of the season and there are reports that university president Graham Spanier could resign as soon as today.

Make no mistake, these are things that have to happen in order for Penn State to move on. The university is at the center of a child sex abuse scandal that is far worse than anything that has ever been associated with college athletics, and the men responsible for it must go.

But the above names listed above are not enough. Sooner or later, Mike McQueary must also move on from Penn State.

If you're hearing McQueary's name for the first time, all you really need to know is that he is currently the Nittany Lions' wide receivers coach and recruiting coordinator. Back in 2002, he witnessed an incident in which Sandusky allegedly sodomized a young boy in the Penn State football locker room showers. Per a grand jury report, McQueary told Paterno, and Paterno then told Curley and Schultz.

Nobody ever went to the police. Paterno, Curley, Shultz and ultimately Spanier are all responsible for that, but so is McQueary.

That McQueary could have done more is not a secret at the moment. As many people have already pointed out, he is in the same boat as Paterno and the other heavy-hitters in this case. In fact, it is largely because of that that McQueary's status for the immediate future is iffy. Concerning whether or not he will be on the sidelines for this Saturday's game against Nebraska, there are conflicting reports.

Here's one from Ron Musselman of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

And here's another from Rachel Bachman of The Wall Street Journal:

So he might coach, and he might not. There is no definitive answer, but there is certainly a shred of doubt.

There should be no doubt whatsoever. McQueary is a key player in the Sandusky case. If nothing else, that means he's a distraction for the university and for the football program, which is an innocent bystander in all this.

If McQueary has any sense, he'll recognize that the writing is on the wall and resign immediately. If he doesn't want to do that, he at least has to have the good sense to follow Paterno out the door at the end of the season.

No matter how he leaves, McQueary needs to leave. In order to move past this mess, Penn State needs to start fresh from top to bottom, and purging everyone with any ties to the Sandusky case is an absolute must.

This may not seem entirely fair, but the truth is that McQueary brought it on himself.