The NCAA goes light on Penn State:
The NCAA has hit Penn State with a $60 million sanction, a four-year football postseason ban and a vacation of all wins dating to 1998, the organization said Monday morning. The career record of Joe Paterno will reflect these vacated records, the NCAA said. Penn State must also reduce 10 initial and 20 total scholarships each year for a four-year period.
This is a ridiculous penalty. The problem wasn’t football-related cheating, so vacating the wins makes no sense. This is pure historical revisionism. The postseason ban won’t matter because Penn State isn’t going to compete for any of the serious bowls in the next four years, and while the scholarship limitation will hurt a little, the whole package falls well short of the four-year death penalty that was merited.