Per ESPN ticker.
Effective immediately.

Perfect timing. Hide it under the Ray Rice newsbreak so all of the 'outrage' crowd is otherwise occupied. Now they just need to restore Joe's wins.

I think it's a great thing for the current staff and players that the ban has been lifted and the scholarships restored. It was a pretty clear overreaction by the NCAA, though understandable, given the unprecedented nature of the situation. None of these coaches or players had anything to do with it, though, so this is fair.

That's as far as it's going, though. Paterno, whether knowingly or not, participated in the situation, the cover-up, the whole nine. I would be surprised if the wins are restored. I understand he's still a beloved figure, and I get that the Sandusky thing had nothing to do with play on the field; but it was going on at the time, and it should affect his personal legacy. The taking away of those wins (the portion of his legacy of which he may have been most proud) seems like decent poetic justice to me.

I don't know, Ice...I'm not a PSU fan, but was always a JoePa fan. He WAS college football to me. I'm not going to sit here and rehash what he may or may not have known about the whole mess (for the record, I want to believe he knew nothing), but I just don't see how ignoring games that he won on the field, changes or helps correct the shitball that was JS. Joe won those games, he's no longer with us...tarnishing his legacy does nothing to help the victims.
I know others will have strong, differing opinions. I understand and respect that. This is just one mans two cents!

I didn't expect my opinion to be popular, and I have nothing but respect for the on field accomplishments. I just look at a few of the things that happened around the team around the time of Sandusky's sudden departure from the team, and find it hard to believe that Paterno didn't know. In fact, I think he did a very human thing, trying to protect a friend, without knowing much about the effects of his actions going forward. Sandusky was a very sick man, and the protection and friendship Paterno showed backfired, and amounted to enabling his friend rather than helping him. It was a very tragic, but very human situation.

That's a fair and reasonable point of view. Like I said, I want to believe Joe was totally innocent in the mess. At the same time understanding that's a hard sell.

Like I said, the positive takeaway here is that the sanctions on the team were lifted. Good for the coaches, the student athletes, the fans and alumni, the conference, and Pennsylvania football as a whole. The NCAA hasn't gotten it right very often, lately. Hard to see this as anything but a good decision.

Agreed!

Joe knew.

And these people celebrating outside Old Main right now are sick. Fuck Penn State.

Yeah, as mentioned above, it's a hard sell to believe he didn't, and even if he didn't, he probably should have. He was the boss, and the buck generally stops there. Enough intrigue, hubris, misguided loyalty and human failure in that situation for a Shakespearean tragedy. Just sad. The current kids didn't deserve the punishment, though, and this comes from a Pitt grad who slavishly follows the Buckeyes every fall Saturday.

Good. It was pointless to continue to punish the players when everyone else involved with the Sandusky scandal is long gone.

The players weren't being punished.

The school was being punished. Players who weren't even in high school when Sandusky was on the coaching staff at Penn State were affected by the punishment.

I'm sure James Franklin celebrated the news that the bowl ban was lifted by declaring tomorrow "Bring a kid to the shower" day at Lasch Hall.

Those players didn't have to attend Penn State therefore they weren't being punished.

This year's seniors, and red-shirt juniors, were freshman when this broke. They had nothing to do with any of this.

They were being punished.

And they were free to transfer to any team they wanted without sitting out.

So no, they weren't being punished.

Semantics. They weren't being punished but they were still affected by the punishment levied against Penn State. Even if all 85 scholarship football players at Penn State when the Sandusky sanctions broke took advantage of the special transfer rules, that would just mean 85 players at other schools lost out on scholarships as a result of the Sandusky sanctions. Some football player at USC lost a scholarship or wasn't offered one because Silas Redd transferred there to get away from Penn State.

None of the NCAA sanctions aside from vacating Paterno's wins had any affect on the people who were actually part of the Sandusky scandal.

If a player is good enough to be offered and then lose out on a scholarship to another school because a Penn State recruit takes his spot, they would be good enough to get an offer elsewhere so that's a tedious argument at best.

Especially since I believe the NCAA said they'd give schools an exemption if they brought in PSU players.

But even if they didn't, no one is actually losing out.

Players at USC were punished for things done by Reggie Bush and Pete Carroll. Both walked Scott free. Players at Ohio State were punished for things done by Terrell Pryor and Jim Tressel, who rightfully lost his job...And so on and so forth. It sucks for all those kids...just how it has to work.

Again: The NCAA sanctions, aside from vacating Paterno's wins, had absolutely no effect on any of the people actually involved in the Sandusky scandal.



Except it doesn't really work. It's the equivalent of taking a kid's car away because his older brother got a DUI.

You just did an excellent job of explaining why the wins should remain vacated.

Technically Paterno followed the letter of the law per NCAA regulations and reported what he heard up the ladder. The NCAA is a joke.

The noted PSU hater. Must have spilled some coffee when you made that run this morning.

I don't have any issue at all with those wins being vacated. And that should have been effect, not affect, my mistake.

You've probably fetched more coffee in your life than I have. I laugh every time someone says that as an insult because people had no clue what my job entailed. But it's obvious your opinion was influenced by tv and movies from the 1960s and 70s when you say that.

I went to Penn State. I graduated from Penn State. The average student at Penn State is awful. Is it like that everywhere? Probably. But I didn't go everywhere. Just to Penn State. And those people are awful.