Mike McQueary CBS Interview: National TV Appearance First Step at Damage Control

On Monday, former Nittany Lions defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky told his side of the Penn State scandal in an interview with Bob Costas and NBC News.

Now it's Mike McQueary's turn. Per the network's Twitter feed, it has been revealed that McQueary is going to appear on CBS Evening News on Tuesday evening. He is scheduled to appear at 6:30 p.m. ET and will be interviewed by Armen Keteyian.

If you're just now tuning into the whole Penn State mess, McQueary is the Nittany Lions' wide receivers coach and recruiting coordinator (he has since been placed on administrative leave). He is also a key witness in the Sandusky scandal, as a grand jury report claims he witnessed Sandusky raping a young boy in the Penn State football locker room showers back in 2002.

McQueary's handling of the incident has come under fire since the allegations against Sandusky came to light. He has been widely criticized for not intervening, and he has also been criticized for running the incident up the ladder rather than taking it to the police. 

Presumably, exactly how McQueary reacted upon seeing Sandusky and the young boy in 2002 is going to be explored in detail during his interview. The grand jury's report claims he left "immediately," but he has since disputed that.

In an email to a former classmate, which was obtained by The Morning Call, McQueary claimed that he actually did intervene.

"I did stop it, not physically, but made sure it was stopped when I left that locker room," he wrote.

McQueary also pointed out in the email that "he did have discussions with police and with the official at the university in charge of police."

In so many words, McQueary did exactly what people are saying he should have done.

Getting all of this out in the open is a crucial step for McQueary. He has not been charged with any crimes in this case, but the court of public opinion considers him to be just as guilty as longtime head coach Joe Paterno and administrators Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, who have been accused of covering up Sandusky's misdeeds.

So if McQueary is telling the truth when he insists that he did make efforts to stop Sandusky's behavior both at the time and for good, it's possible that the court of pubic opinion will clear his name.

If this is McQueary's endgame, however, one interview with CBS likely won't get him all the way there. He'll have to do more, speak more and elaborate more. He needs to let the public know exactly what happened, and he also has the added difficulty of convincing everyone to take his word for it.

If people do take his word for it, McQueary is going to go from being a villain to being a sympathetic figure.

On the other side of the equation, his superiors are going to become even more villainous.