i understand that it was an institution problem. but who that made that mistake is still there? this should facilitate change...not be a situation of punishing those that had nothing to do with it. losing half their football proceeds (at least) and the bad publicity will punish them. and the money can be used to facilitate help and change. those scholarships lost wont help the problem. a bowl ban wont help the problem. did the smu death penalty stop boosters from paying players? this is a different situation and should be looked at as such. take their money and use it to educate and help and facilitate the change that could prevent this from happening again.
The change that needs to be facilitated is that people need to realize that college football is not the most important thing in the world. Universities need to realize that they can't invest their entire identity into one athletic coach. High school kids need to realize that they'd better think about more than football when they choose a university. And every coach and administrator in the country needs to realize that they cannot take the place of the police-- that sometimes the best thing to do when something goes wrong is to report it to the authorities and get the hell out of the way.If some football players at Penn State either have to transfer or accept that they are at a lower-profile program than they intended, they will survive. It is not the end of the world. The NCAA is realigning the priorities at Penn State. It's pretty obvious when you read their fan forums, look at the knee-jerk defenses of Paterno, etc., that that is necessary. (And by the way, I'm not one who thinks Iowa fans would be any more rational in a similar situation). And the wider outcome of this punishment, whatever it is, should be to realign the priorities of all college sports fans. College sports can be amazing fun and an awesome experience for the athletes (they were for me and for members of my family). But every program has to start thinking about what happens when the football/basketball coach has the same amount of power (or even more) than the university president and board of regents. Even when you have a great coach and great person (which of course Paterno was), it's just too much power to invest in someone whose expertise is x's and o's, not the Cleary Act, human resources, compliance, etc. It may take some pretty severe penalties to get other universities to take notice. If that's what it takes, that's what it takes.