Penn State Scandal: Recruits Right To Nix Nittany Lions Amidst Sandusky Scandal

It should come as no surprise that high school football recruits are beginning to abandon Penn State in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky scandal and the fallout that's claimed the jobs and reputations of Joe Paterno, president Graham Spanier, athletic director Tim Curley and vice president Gary Schultz.

At this point, it would be strange if all of the 15 kids currently committed to join the Nittany Lions next fall, along with their parents, didn't at least take a good, long look at the strength of their ties to the university and consider severing them.

The exodus among JoePa's commits has already begun. For the likes of Joey O'Connor and Adam Ah Ching, the stain left by the current fiasco has proven to be more than enough of a turnoff to convince them to re-open the recruiting process.

As it should. What parents, in their right minds, would want to send their sons to spend the next four years of their lives under the black cloud that's hanging over Happy Valley, in the care of some who were morally complicit in the most shameful event to ever be so closely associated with college football?

That should be the case until Penn State cleans house completely, until a new university president hires a new athletic director, who, in turn, hires a new coach with a new staff. Interim head coach Tom Bradley and interim athletic director Mark Sherburne have already informed the football program's existing commitments that a "national search is on" for a head coach, though those words will ring empty until after the season, when the "interim" tag no longer applies to whoever is in charge.

The search itself figures to be long, thorough, exhaustive and, above all, external. Whoever ends up with the job at the end of the day, whether it's a big name like Urban Meyer or a relative unknown, will be hard-pressed to retain much, if any, of the current coaching staff, if for no other reason than to avoid tainting his own name by association.

No recruit should be expected, or even hoped, to affirm or reaffirm his commitment to play football for Penn State until the extent of the damage—to the university and, most importantly, to the victims—has been assessed, the enablers have been removed and the proper people have been hired to replace them.

And even then, the kids and their parents would be wise to proceed with a healthy sense of skepticism and trepidation.

Because if even the seemingly infallible Joe Paterno could get mixed up in something like this, then who's to say the next guy in charge won't also put the lives and livelihoods of so many at risk?