Jerry Sandusky Scandal: Penn State Football Will Never Recover from Scandal

Penn State football will never be the same.

It can’t be.

Just like Southern Methodist football in the 1980s and Baylor basketball in the 1990s, the Nittany Lions’ program is being rocked by a scandal that will take years for them to even begin recovering from.

First, they have to find a coach crazy enough to take the open position.

Whoever is unfortunate enough to accept this mission will have the unenviable job of recruiting young men to a program that is now infamous for a former coordinator who allegedly had anal intercourse with a 10-year-old boy in their showers.

In the past, Penn State received a ton of upstanding and talented recruits because of their spotless reputation that was largely owed to and based on their renowned coach Joe Paterno.

Now that the Nittany Lions football program has lost their innocence and their coach of 46 years, nothing separates them from any other seedy D-I football program that has been mired by NCAA violations and scandal.

What's more, none of those programs have had allegations against them as vile and disgusting as Penn State currently does.

Those upstanding and talented young men are now going to go to other schools in the Big Ten area or possibly further to avoid being associated with a program that has such a filthy and soiled reputation.

While most of 2012 verbal commits are apparently still sticking around, I can see that changing in the near future. After all, future recruits are certainly going to take this scandal into account when deciding whether or not to join the program.

We haven’t even seen the NCAA talk about getting involved yet. They could further punish the school beyond their damaged reputation.

If they happen to get involved—and they probably will—look for Penn State to quickly fall even further from grace and hit rock bottom.

It will take them years to recover and they will never regain their innocence.