This is quite hilarious: http://www.offtackleempire.com/2012/5/1 ... ue-edition

I don't see a home site game having that as a problem I agree. Was talking about neutral site games.

nowhere else to put this (there should probably be an Olympics thread), and this aint really related to football, but regardless, 'sco Ducks

Ashton Eaton breaks all-time world decathalon record

How in the hell is this not being discussed? What do you think about what the NCAA did to Penn State. In my opinion, the NCAA should have just stayed the fuck clear of the situation. We have criminal laws and the guilty are being prosecuted according to them. This had nothing to do with a level playing field and I think the NCAA severely overstepped their bounds. This punishes NONE of the guilty parties.

Cry me a fucking river.

By "overstepped their bounds" you obviously aren't talking about jurisdiction because the PSU trustees expressly gave NCAA jurisdiction to hand down a punishment and agreed to abide by it. And whatever else that punishment is, it's the closest thing Joe Paterno will ever get to a sentence for the decade-plus he spent conspiring to not only protect a child molester but give him free rein to continue molesting. Spanier, Schultz and Curley should go to prison, but the worst thing that can be done to Paterno at this point is to strip him of his records and to punish the program he built while he was a criminal conspirator. My only problem with this is that compared to what happened to SMU in the 80s it's a lesser punishment for a far more heinous crime.

This demonstrates a pretty clear lack of institutional control which is a violation in and of itself. I think it's perfectly legitimate.

You name me a person who this punishes who is actually guilty here. I don't give a rip about Paterno losing his wins. He's dead and the wins are not what I'm even concerned with. I don't view this as a lesser punishment than what SMU got. This is pretty freaking severe. I don't disagree that this is a worse crime than what SMU did but those crimes are all being accounted for by the criminal justice system. I could be wrong, but I can't remember a time when the NCAA punished a school for something that had nothing to do with an uneven playing field.

What you don't seem to understand is that Football has out of control influence at Penn St. This is to make sure this doesn't happen again at any university where football is put ahead of everything else. Deterrence is part of the punishment and the university itself is culpable. And as for them being accounted for? We'll see. But nice try on not understanding NCAA rules or lack of institutional control.

I understand lack of institutional control, I really do. I'm not trying to be pig headed here and I apologize if I'm being an enormous ass (this issue just makes my blood boil). I'm not keen on making "examples" of people, for one thing. I'm less keen on it when the only people who are being punished by you setting your example had nothing to do with it. I understand innocent bystanders getting hurt in the situations where there is actually an unlevel playing field because ensuring a level playing field is, in my mind, solely why the NCAA should exist. In those situations the program and the fans gained something by having an unfair advantage. In this case, the crimes committed had nothing to do with the game. If they want to punish a coverup then fine, but make it proportional to punishments for coverups in the past.

I really feel like people have stopped being reasonable on this particular issue. Child rape is super awful and I think people have just become enraged and want blood. The guilty parties are being punished according to our laws and that isn't enough for most people so they want the program to suffer as well, innocents be damned.

Fuck that, it was the stupid fucking culture that allowed for this to happen, I applaud the NCAA for setting some fucking standards and sending a clear message to the enablers, and tough shit for anybody who doesn't like it.

Boo boo is correct. The fans and program were culpable in creating this environment where football is so important that optics in the program trump child abuse. Given that the victims were collateral damage (innocent bystanders) injured by that system I don't think Penn St. has much ground to stand on. And the university itself is certainly culpable so punishing the university severely makes sense. People are often hurt when their relatives get thrown in jail but I'm guessing you have no problem with that. Innocents are often hurt when Companies commit crimes and are punished but I'm also guessing you aren't opposed to that.

I understand that in doling out punishments sometimes innocent people are going to be affected. I'd prefer it, however, if casualties were kept to a minimum. In this situation, the people who are truly guilty are going to jail. That's enough for me. No need to hammer a bunch of people who weren't involved. (And the "innocents" aren't just the football players, it's the faculty, fans, students, and businesses that are going to be affected by this, which is something I see forgotten an awful lot).

I guess the fans played a part in "creating the culture" but ESPN and the NCAA did as much or more than the fans did. I also expect this culture exists at a lot more places than PSU and if these measures somehow prevent such a situation from occurring again then at least they did something. I doubt, however, that this is going to be as effective as is hoped.

It really bothers me how much the NCAA rushed this whole thing and how they ignored their entire method of handling sanctions. Lack of institutional control has been charged a lot of times in the past and not once has that charge (on its own) come close to dishing out penalties like this. The whole procedure struck me as fairly arbitrary. I understand that "unprecedented" actions require "unprecedented" measures but I think a lot more thought should have been put into said measures than there was.

The fans and alumni especially are major parts in creating this environment. The players are the hardest collateral damage and they have the opportunity at least to transfer anywhere.

And no ESPN and the NCAA are not the ones who created the culture. And as for the old snail way of handling sanctions? This was an extraordinary situation that didn't need a couple year delivery process or an independent NCAA investigation. Penn St. agreed to supply the report to the NCAA and submit to its judgment. Given that what need was there for the normal process (which the NCAA has been violently criticized for making it too slow in the past).

I agree overall, but at the same time I definitely feel that the NCAA has drastically increased its power in the process.

Possibly. And don't read my post as an overall defense of the NCAA.