Spared the death penalty, Penn State football instead was punished so severely Monday that the far-reaching effects may be just as crippling.
Gene J. Puskar, AP
Sophomore Laura Lovinsreacts while listening to a television as the NCAA sanctions against the Penn State football program are announced Monday.
The NCAA's unprecedented penalties left a bucolic central Pennsylvania community collectively slack-jawed, grappling with how its university can overcome the most daunting rebuilding project of the sport's modern era.
"A de facto death penalty," David Price, the former longtime NCAA enforcement head, told USA TODAY Sports.
Former Miami coach Jimmy Johnson tweeted that Penn State will be "no better than [Division] 2 for many years." ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit said a decade will pass before the Nittany Lions could be competitive. And former Penn State standout Kyle Brady said his alma mater will be an irrelevant program for most of his 7-year-old son's teenage years.
"Had the death penalty been for one year, maybe it would not have been as bad as this …," Brady said in a telephone interview. "All teams have mountains to climb. This one is as big as any anyone has had to climb. There's still the stigma, the damage to the brand; to add this is going to be devastating for a long time."
Penn State President Rodney Erickson said Penn State football avoided being shut down for at least one season only because he signed an NCAA agreement to accept heavy sanctions, which include a $60 million fine, four-year bowl postseason ban and massive scholarship reductions. With Penn State acknowledging multiple failures by campus leaders, including late football coach Joe Paterno, to take action that potentially could have stopped sexual predator Jerry Sandusky's attacks on children years earlier, the school had little leverage.
"We had our backs to the wall on this," Erickson told The Centre Daily Times. "We did what we thought was necessary to save the program."
Among the myriad challenges facing the football program:
The NCAA fine is equal to the average gross annual revenue from Penn State football. The Big Ten later announced it withhold Penn State's share of conference bowl revenue for four years, an additional fine of $13 million, and also bar the Nittany Lions from the conference title game.
Coach Bill O'Brien and his staff must entice prospects to come to State College even though they could play their entire careers without even a chance to play in a bowl game. The Nittany Lions also must try to retain current players and signed recruits who, as Brady said, are "all free agents now." The NCAA said Penn State players are permitted to transfer to any school without having to sit out a season. A high school coach said he got a call from Alabama coach Nick Saban checking on a soon-to-be Penn State freshman.
And the school must create a new legacy after the one fortified by Paterno over a 61-year career - 46 as head coach - was forever sullied. By Penn State agreeing to vacate all wins between 1998 and 2011, Paterno loses 111 victories from his win total of 409. He now falls to fifth on the all-time list of winningest coaches in major college football.
With its once robust program in tatters, reaction within the Penn State community ranged from disbelief to resignation.
"All I can say is this is very harsh, it's kind of an eight-year penalty," said former Penn State kicker Matt Bahr. "I'm still trying to wrap [my brain] around it." I don't think it's over yet."
Chet Parlavecchio, a member of the 1982 national championship team, did not watch NCAA President Mark Emmert's groundbreaking ruling outlined during a nationally televised news conference.
"Terrible. The whole thing is a nightmare," said Parlavecchio, a current special teams coach for the Tennessee Titans. "Surreal. Words don't do it justice. I don't even have a reaction … Only unbelievable. Unbelievable. Unbelievable."
And former Penn State standout Matt Millen said: "I wouldn't be shocked if Bill O'Brien leaves. If he doesn't, it is a testament to his character and commitment."
SUBHEAD: O'Brien forges ahead
The one morsel of good news for Penn State football is that O'Brien, the first-year coach and former New England Patriots offensive coordinator, issued a statement early Monday pledging to remain with the school long term.
"I will do everything in my power to not only comply, but help guide the university forward to become a national leader in ethics, compliance and operational excellence," O'Brien said. "I knew when I accepted the position that there would be tough times ahead."
The question is how many current Penn State players will remain with O'Brien. Several tweeted their commitment to the program. Many were seen walking out of a players' meeting Monday talking on cell phones and not talking with reporters. O'Brien reportedly spent much of Monday on the phone re-recruiting current players.
Kevin Lennon, the NCAA's director of membership services, said that any player wishing to transfer can do so and be eligible immediately as long as he is in good academic standing. Any football player who wants to remain at Penn State can retain his athletic scholarship regardless of whether he competes on the football team. Lennon said the NCAA will discuss whether other schools will be allowed to exceed the 85-scholarship limit to accept eligible Penn State transfers, but no decision has been made.
Penn State will be limited to 15 scholarships for football recruits annually (reduced from the standard cap of 25) each season for four years. The team will be limited to an overall total of 65 scholarships during the four-year period.
"They are a 1AA school right now because they are down to 65 scholarships." said North Carolina State coach Tom O'Brien. "I don't think you can ever cripple a Penn State because of the brand, who and what they were and what they accomplished. Will it hurt them? Yes. Will it kill them? I don't think so."
USC faced a two-year bowl ban as part of its 2010 penalties for recruiting violations, but athletic director Pat Haden said it was the loss of scholarships that hurt the most.
"You have to be very judicious in recruiting," he said in a statement. "You have to be lucky with injuries and you have to guard your roster from players being recruited by other schools. It is an inexact science and you have to do the best you can."
Other schools already have begun inquiring about players slated to be Penn State freshmen this fall. Gilman (Baltimore) football coach Biff Poggi told USA TODAY Sports he spoke with Saban on Monday regarding former Gilman offensive lineman Brian Gaia. "The better kids are going to want to get the exposure you get from bowls, so they will leave," Poggi said.
It is not the ideal time for Penn State players to shop for new teams. Camps open in just a few weeks and few schools may have scholarships available.
Calvert Hall (Baltimore) coach Donald Davis told USA TODAY Sports he recently began contacting college coaches on behalf of the three players he has at Penn State: freshman defensive back Da'Quan Bowers; freshman wide receiver Trevor Williams; and sophomore cornerback Adrian Amos.
"We have made contact with a number of coaches to let them know it's a fluid situation," Davis said. "They could all stay at Penn State, they could all leave or somewhere in between."
One player who could be a tipping point for Penn State recruits is quarterback Christian Hackenberg of Fork Union (Va.) Military Academy, who was recently in the Elite 11 quarterback camp and is rated as the top quarterback in the 2013 class by ESPN.com. Rivals.com recruiting analyst Mike Farrell said Hackenberg told him the first schools he would contact if he decided to leave Penn State would be South Carolina and Auburn.
"The entire 2013 class is going down the tank if Hackenberg and Adam Breneman (a tight end from Camp Hill) leave," Farrell said.
SUBHEAD: Money for abuse victims
Given potential attrition and recruiting uncertainty, the onus will be on Penn State's community to continue to fill Beaver Stadium and support the program financially.
Penn State football's average yearly revenue of $60 million is nearly equal to the total athletic department revenue of Rutgers or Purdue in a year. And it ranks near the top third of all Football Bowl Subdivision football teams at public universities.
The NCAA mandated that Penn State pay $12 million each year during a five-year period into an endowment for programs preventing child sexual abuse and assisting the victims of child sexual abuse.
"This total of $60 million can never reduce the pain suffered by victims, but will help provide them hope and healing," Erickson said in a statement.
The NCAA also required Penn State to avoid using money earmarked for academics. And no current sponsored athletic team may be reduced or eliminated in order to pay for the fine.
Penn State will use its athletics reserve fund, capital maintenance budget and if necessary, an internal bond issue, to pay the $60 million fine, according to the Harrisburg Patriot-News. Penn State athletics said it ended 2010-2011 with an unrestricted fund balance of $24.7 million.
"The money, it goes a little bit against what the NCAA says all the time about money," said Jay Bilas, an ESPN basketball analyst who is also an attorney. "That these are nonprofit organizations, that they don't make any money off athletics and that the money goes back into the programs for the benefit of student-athletes and toward what the mission of the university is.
"Now $60 million is being taken away from the university. It's either coming from football or the academic side, which is supposed to be above sports."
With the lost Big Ten money, the total rises to at least $73 million, and a larger financial penalty for Penn State may still loom. The U.S. Department of Education continues to investigate and has the power to strip all of its federal funding to Penn State after its probe.
Said University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias: "Taking money away does not help correct the past problem and Emmert said as much. I think the NCAA meant to send a message and make an example for other programs that some believe are too powerful and driven too much by money."
Penn State must now forge into the season with its previous 14 campaigns stricken from history. Adam Taliaferro, who was paralyzed playing for Penn State before making a dramatic recovery, tweeted "NCAA says games didn't exist..I got the metal plate in my neck to prove it did..I almost died playing 4 PSU..punishment or healing?!?"
Contributing: Jim Halley, Jon Saraceno, Steve Berkowitz, Mike Foss, Erin Egan, Michael Florek and Jamie McCracken.
Gene J. Puskar, AP
Sophomore Laura Lovinsreacts while listening to a television as the NCAA sanctions against the Penn State football program are announced Monday.
The NCAA's unprecedented penalties left a bucolic central Pennsylvania community collectively slack-jawed, grappling with how its university can overcome the most daunting rebuilding project of the sport's modern era.
"A de facto death penalty," David Price, the former longtime NCAA enforcement head, told USA TODAY Sports.
Former Miami coach Jimmy Johnson tweeted that Penn State will be "no better than [Division] 2 for many years." ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit said a decade will pass before the Nittany Lions could be competitive. And former Penn State standout Kyle Brady said his alma mater will be an irrelevant program for most of his 7-year-old son's teenage years.
"Had the death penalty been for one year, maybe it would not have been as bad as this …," Brady said in a telephone interview. "All teams have mountains to climb. This one is as big as any anyone has had to climb. There's still the stigma, the damage to the brand; to add this is going to be devastating for a long time."
Penn State President Rodney Erickson said Penn State football avoided being shut down for at least one season only because he signed an NCAA agreement to accept heavy sanctions, which include a $60 million fine, four-year bowl postseason ban and massive scholarship reductions. With Penn State acknowledging multiple failures by campus leaders, including late football coach Joe Paterno, to take action that potentially could have stopped sexual predator Jerry Sandusky's attacks on children years earlier, the school had little leverage.
"We had our backs to the wall on this," Erickson told The Centre Daily Times. "We did what we thought was necessary to save the program."
Among the myriad challenges facing the football program:
The NCAA fine is equal to the average gross annual revenue from Penn State football. The Big Ten later announced it withhold Penn State's share of conference bowl revenue for four years, an additional fine of $13 million, and also bar the Nittany Lions from the conference title game.
Coach Bill O'Brien and his staff must entice prospects to come to State College even though they could play their entire careers without even a chance to play in a bowl game. The Nittany Lions also must try to retain current players and signed recruits who, as Brady said, are "all free agents now." The NCAA said Penn State players are permitted to transfer to any school without having to sit out a season. A high school coach said he got a call from Alabama coach Nick Saban checking on a soon-to-be Penn State freshman.
And the school must create a new legacy after the one fortified by Paterno over a 61-year career - 46 as head coach - was forever sullied. By Penn State agreeing to vacate all wins between 1998 and 2011, Paterno loses 111 victories from his win total of 409. He now falls to fifth on the all-time list of winningest coaches in major college football.
With its once robust program in tatters, reaction within the Penn State community ranged from disbelief to resignation.
"All I can say is this is very harsh, it's kind of an eight-year penalty," said former Penn State kicker Matt Bahr. "I'm still trying to wrap [my brain] around it." I don't think it's over yet."
Chet Parlavecchio, a member of the 1982 national championship team, did not watch NCAA President Mark Emmert's groundbreaking ruling outlined during a nationally televised news conference.
"Terrible. The whole thing is a nightmare," said Parlavecchio, a current special teams coach for the Tennessee Titans. "Surreal. Words don't do it justice. I don't even have a reaction … Only unbelievable. Unbelievable. Unbelievable."
And former Penn State standout Matt Millen said: "I wouldn't be shocked if Bill O'Brien leaves. If he doesn't, it is a testament to his character and commitment."
SUBHEAD: O'Brien forges ahead
The one morsel of good news for Penn State football is that O'Brien, the first-year coach and former New England Patriots offensive coordinator, issued a statement early Monday pledging to remain with the school long term.
"I will do everything in my power to not only comply, but help guide the university forward to become a national leader in ethics, compliance and operational excellence," O'Brien said. "I knew when I accepted the position that there would be tough times ahead."
The question is how many current Penn State players will remain with O'Brien. Several tweeted their commitment to the program. Many were seen walking out of a players' meeting Monday talking on cell phones and not talking with reporters. O'Brien reportedly spent much of Monday on the phone re-recruiting current players.
Kevin Lennon, the NCAA's director of membership services, said that any player wishing to transfer can do so and be eligible immediately as long as he is in good academic standing. Any football player who wants to remain at Penn State can retain his athletic scholarship regardless of whether he competes on the football team. Lennon said the NCAA will discuss whether other schools will be allowed to exceed the 85-scholarship limit to accept eligible Penn State transfers, but no decision has been made.
Penn State will be limited to 15 scholarships for football recruits annually (reduced from the standard cap of 25) each season for four years. The team will be limited to an overall total of 65 scholarships during the four-year period.
"They are a 1AA school right now because they are down to 65 scholarships." said North Carolina State coach Tom O'Brien. "I don't think you can ever cripple a Penn State because of the brand, who and what they were and what they accomplished. Will it hurt them? Yes. Will it kill them? I don't think so."
USC faced a two-year bowl ban as part of its 2010 penalties for recruiting violations, but athletic director Pat Haden said it was the loss of scholarships that hurt the most.
"You have to be very judicious in recruiting," he said in a statement. "You have to be lucky with injuries and you have to guard your roster from players being recruited by other schools. It is an inexact science and you have to do the best you can."
Other schools already have begun inquiring about players slated to be Penn State freshmen this fall. Gilman (Baltimore) football coach Biff Poggi told USA TODAY Sports he spoke with Saban on Monday regarding former Gilman offensive lineman Brian Gaia. "The better kids are going to want to get the exposure you get from bowls, so they will leave," Poggi said.
It is not the ideal time for Penn State players to shop for new teams. Camps open in just a few weeks and few schools may have scholarships available.
Calvert Hall (Baltimore) coach Donald Davis told USA TODAY Sports he recently began contacting college coaches on behalf of the three players he has at Penn State: freshman defensive back Da'Quan Bowers; freshman wide receiver Trevor Williams; and sophomore cornerback Adrian Amos.
"We have made contact with a number of coaches to let them know it's a fluid situation," Davis said. "They could all stay at Penn State, they could all leave or somewhere in between."
One player who could be a tipping point for Penn State recruits is quarterback Christian Hackenberg of Fork Union (Va.) Military Academy, who was recently in the Elite 11 quarterback camp and is rated as the top quarterback in the 2013 class by ESPN.com. Rivals.com recruiting analyst Mike Farrell said Hackenberg told him the first schools he would contact if he decided to leave Penn State would be South Carolina and Auburn.
"The entire 2013 class is going down the tank if Hackenberg and Adam Breneman (a tight end from Camp Hill) leave," Farrell said.
SUBHEAD: Money for abuse victims
Given potential attrition and recruiting uncertainty, the onus will be on Penn State's community to continue to fill Beaver Stadium and support the program financially.
Penn State football's average yearly revenue of $60 million is nearly equal to the total athletic department revenue of Rutgers or Purdue in a year. And it ranks near the top third of all Football Bowl Subdivision football teams at public universities.
The NCAA mandated that Penn State pay $12 million each year during a five-year period into an endowment for programs preventing child sexual abuse and assisting the victims of child sexual abuse.
"This total of $60 million can never reduce the pain suffered by victims, but will help provide them hope and healing," Erickson said in a statement.
The NCAA also required Penn State to avoid using money earmarked for academics. And no current sponsored athletic team may be reduced or eliminated in order to pay for the fine.
Penn State will use its athletics reserve fund, capital maintenance budget and if necessary, an internal bond issue, to pay the $60 million fine, according to the Harrisburg Patriot-News. Penn State athletics said it ended 2010-2011 with an unrestricted fund balance of $24.7 million.
"The money, it goes a little bit against what the NCAA says all the time about money," said Jay Bilas, an ESPN basketball analyst who is also an attorney. "That these are nonprofit organizations, that they don't make any money off athletics and that the money goes back into the programs for the benefit of student-athletes and toward what the mission of the university is.
"Now $60 million is being taken away from the university. It's either coming from football or the academic side, which is supposed to be above sports."
With the lost Big Ten money, the total rises to at least $73 million, and a larger financial penalty for Penn State may still loom. The U.S. Department of Education continues to investigate and has the power to strip all of its federal funding to Penn State after its probe.
Said University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias: "Taking money away does not help correct the past problem and Emmert said as much. I think the NCAA meant to send a message and make an example for other programs that some believe are too powerful and driven too much by money."
Penn State must now forge into the season with its previous 14 campaigns stricken from history. Adam Taliaferro, who was paralyzed playing for Penn State before making a dramatic recovery, tweeted "NCAA says games didn't exist..I got the metal plate in my neck to prove it did..I almost died playing 4 PSU..punishment or healing?!?"
Contributing: Jim Halley, Jon Saraceno, Steve Berkowitz, Mike Foss, Erin Egan, Michael Florek and Jamie McCracken.