Penn State Football: Why the Big Ten Has Every Right to Throw the Book at Lions

Lots of things have taken place following the investigation into former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, including the firing of university president Graham Spanier and legendary football coach Joe Paterno.

The Department of Education and NCAA are looking into the case and, apparently, so will the Big Ten conference. Depending on its findings, it may also hand down additional sanctions.

It will also conduct an assessment of the institutional control of the athletics at the other 11 schools.

This is absolutely the right thing to do for the conference. At the end of the day, it has to protect its own interests, and Penn state has become a liability to its image of academic and athletic excellence.

The university as a whole displayed a colossal failure in moral judgment and, at least from what we think we know, put the interests of itself above those of 10 or more children. That has to be punished by anyone with the authority to do so.

The rule book is there for a reason, to have a set of guidelines for when someone does something wrong. If the Big Ten did not look into this situation and find out if Penn State broke any rules, it would essentially be giving the university a free pass.

The conference needs to be looking into every rules violation and not just ones of this magnitude. College sports as a whole needs a massive crackdown on scandals and rule breaking because they are ruining everything positive that college athletics does.

The Big Ten is making the best and right choice by investigating Penn State right now.