The sports media world handles the presence of Penn State's football team in the Big 10's current "championship" game largely as matter of fact business. That is ironic along a couple of dimensions.
First, neither of the participants in the game appears as if it will jump two other, idle-this-week, Fat-10 teams, win or lose, in the quest for the NCCAF's CFP. I don't have huge heartburn with this reality given that college football, because of unbalanced schedules, "warm-up" games, diverse conference/division structures, etc., can't equate a conference's championship standing as a pure, objective and relative ranking of teams. So... relax and live with it. No crime there.
But more ironic, tragic really, is the business-as-usual manner in which PSU's presence is being treated. Worse is the sense from some quarters of relief, perhaps even welcoming, of Penn State back into the higher levels of college football. And all of this occurring at the very same time - as if in a parallel universe - that the machinations and repercussions from the worst and most despicable scandal in sports history continue apace.
Just a couple of weeks ago the US Dept of Education levied the most onerous penalties and damning critiques of a university, ever, against Penn State for it's non-compliance with the base-line safety structures demanded by the Clery Act. While that investigation of the horrors of the Sandusky Child Abuse cover-up are what triggered that investigation, a large part of the condemnation from that same investigation focused on the basic, dysfunctional operations of the athletic department and its relation to the administrative functions of that university. The football team, in particular, ran amok. That played out even before the breaking of the news of the Sandusky scandal in the astounding behaviors by the football coach, the wild and reckless behavior of the players and their run-ins with the local police (already compromised by fealty to the university's football program), and the entire upside-down authority structure that permitted this entire mess.
In effect, the Clery Report makes moot any of the bogus defense strategies of Paterno that have been constructed by the Cult and the JoeBots... that he did what he should have done in the scandal and was, in fact, noble in his actions. Clery Act reporting says that even had the Sandusky Scandal never broken, PSU football was an abomination... the very example of a program operating with virtually no institution controls. It is not only in league with shameful episodes which have been uncovered at U of Miami, Oklahoma, Baylor. But it substantiates what U of Oregon's then-president Ray (a member of the NCAA's executive committee) said of PSU when the Freeh Report and their own analysis was issued: It was absolutely the worst violation of institutional control that he'd ever seen.
This from a university whose entire DNA screamed out: "We are superior to you other schools... you rabble of cheaters and corner-cutters. We do things the right way... the Penn State way. We are led by a demi-god, a man this sport needs and to whom this university owes its unique and wondrous standing. Only those that are 'Penn State material' need apply". WE ARE!! (oh, and YOU aren't)
Which brings about this reality for any fan with even a modicum of thoughtfulness on the current college football situation: Penn State's participation in this championship quest is a fraudulent disgrace. NOT because of their shaky credentials for being in a championship game or their degree of luck in getting there. But... because that University, in spite of the shame that its fan-base refuses to acknowledge and the depths to which this university and its supporters will go to duck the responsibility that it should bear (instead being content to pay-off the controversy to the tune, for now, of nearly 1/5th of a billion dollars), acts as if nothing ever happened.
In fairness, as Cap'n Sid on one these boards correctly points out, PSU instituted many dozens of new processes and policies to re-govern its renegade football program as a result of the Freeh and NCAA's investigation. That is commendable... and should be the central image of Penn State. Not, "WE ARE" But instead "We still play football because we were forced to completely overhaul our criminal and disgraced program as mandated when this university's shameful culture was exposed."
If the university and its current leadership ever stops to acknowledge that fact and apologize for the otherwise unspoken elephant in the room, it might be easier to "move on" and see this as a legitimate "new era" in Penn State football. But that is virtually inconceivable given the mindset of that weird, insular, arrogant and brutal cult in Central PA. The administration that took over in the wake of the scandal (Erickson, Surma, et al) seem to have been the only ones, thus far, to even attempt to do the right things. They were hounded out and harassed.
Until then, watching that university compete in national-scale football competition is nauseating.
