Penn State Scandal: Bowl Games Are Going To Black List the Lions This Postseason

The college football regular season is rapidly coming to an end, and it's about that time teams start preparing for conference championships and bowl games. This is a great time of year for most teams and student-athletes to enjoy the benefits of a successful season. 

Penn State has been a very successful bowl team, as former head coach Joe Paterno has won the most bowl games of any coach with 24 victories. Any other year, bowl sites would kill to have the Nittany Lions play for them, but many may shy away this season.

With the sex scandal involving Jerry Sandusky and the firing of legendary head coach Joe Paterno, it's a really messy situation going on at the university. Many bowls are not going to want those distractions to ruin a time of year that is supposed to be fun and rewarding.

"I can't see someone eager to take them," a bowl official said, according to CBS Sports' Brett McMurphy. "I don't think you want that story on your hands. When you bring a bowl team to your community, you want warm, fuzzy stories about student-athletes. You don't want what's going on there."

As you can see, the domino effect is starting to take place as the student-athletes did nothing wrong. There are 16 seniors on this team that may not be given the opportunity to play in a bowl game because of something somebody else did.

"The shame of it is the kids at Penn State now had nothing to do with all the controversy," a bowl official said. "But there's a bigger picture here. Bowls are part for the economic impact and part being an opportunity to showcase the community. With Penn State, the other team won't be a story. Everything will be what happened at Penn State [concerning Sandusky]. It's not what you're looking for as a bowl. It's not a fun story."

That's another good point. Forget about Penn State for a second. The other team that would end up playing the Nittany Lions would hate that matchup. The opposing team would get no love for their season accomplishments as every story would be about Penn State and the scandal they're involved in. 

What are the chances Penn State gets denied a bowl game all together? The Nittany Lions have eight wins, more than the six-victory minimum to make them eligible, but seven other Big Ten schools already met that mark, with Northwestern and Purdue perhaps on the way. If there are 10 bowl-eligible teams in the Big Ten, the Nittany Lions could be denied all together.

Crazy, right?

But then Penn State would probably get accepted by some non Big Ten bowl that doesn't have enough teams to fill.

Of course the Nittany Lions can just prevent all of this by winning the Big Ten and earning a Rose Bowl berth. Penn State is currently a game up over Wisconsin in the Leaders Division with two to play.

The right thing for Penn State to do is just refuse to accept a bowl invitation and begin to work on the healing process. Clean house with the coaching staff, begin recruiting and find a new head coach to replace Joe Paterno. Although this is highly unlikely because Tom Bradley already said they are going to play a bowl game this season.

It may just be a long wait for the Nittany Lions this season.

Randy Chambers is a B/R Featured Columnist that covers College Football and the NFL. You can contact him @Randy_Chambers or [e-mail]

Bleacher Report is your home for college football for the 2011 season. From scores, news, analysis, live blogs and updates on your favorite teams and the big national games every week, keep it on Bleacher Report for the very latest in college football news.