Joe Paterno Fired: Why Penn State Football Recruiting Will Never Be the Same

With the exception of maybe Bear Bryant, there’s certainly never been a football coach who has been so synonymous with his university as Joe Paterno was with Penn State.

For decades, Paterno was the everlasting face of not only the football team, but the school and the surrounding community as well. But last night, the 84-year-old coach’s career at Penn State, one which dated all the way back to 1950, finally came to an end when the school’s board of trustees made the decision to fire Paterno for his failure to properly deal with a sexual assault report involving former assistant Jerry Sandusky.

The type of scandal that Penn State is currently facing is one that simply transcends sports, and you can only imagine how long it will take to heal and recover from this whole terrible and tragic situation.

Penn State’s public image is one that is going to be in severe need of repair over the next few years, and you can only imagine what’s going to happen to enrollment in the near future.

From a football standpoint, recruiting will likely never be the same after all of this.

Paterno was a big part of Penn State's appeal, and without him at the helm, the team’s prestige will take a dramatic hit.

It will be interesting to see which coach the school ultimately finds to succeed Paterno, but whoever it ends up being—whether it’s an established coach like Greg Schiano, Al Golden or Pat Fitzgerald, or a lesser-known coach—that person is going to have to be prepared for a long rebuilding process.

Penn State is not going to be an easy school to recruit for over the next few years and it’s going to be tremendously difficult to reel in high-profile prospects after all that’s transpired

Unless the Nittany Lions can somehow figure out how to land a proven mastermind recruiter like Urban Meyer, this team’s talent level is surely going to take a dramatic hit in the coming years.