SEC Coverage

The Freeh Report on Penn State is out. It's very long and I don't have time to read it this morning, so if you're interested in it, this SBNation.com post is a good place to start. Long story short: the entire leadership at Penn State, up to and including the board of directors, seriously fouled up everything surrounding the Jerry Sandusky scandal beginning in 1998. If the report is truly accurate, and there's no reason to think it's not, Joe Paterno's reputation is now officially and justifiably tarnished.

Joe Paterno has passed away after a brief battle with lung cancer. He was 85. It's sad that he will now be remembered as much for what he didn't do (in the Sandusky scandal) as what he did (legendary coach and devoted donor to his school), but such are the consequences of our choices in life.

cocknfire has been keeping track of the legal wrangling over the NCAA's response to FSU's appeal of sanctions over its massive academic fraud scandal. The Tallahassee Democrat has posted a copy of it online for your reading pleasure. The most important thing in it is that the NCAA plans to uphold the vacating wins penalty (unlike with Oklahoma a few years back), putting Bobby Bowden 15 wins behind Joe Paterno. Other teams are hurt by that too (I understand it removes two national titles for the track team, correct me if I'm wrong), but that's where most of the focus will be, The money quote: "The committee said the conduct of Florida State staff members involved in the cheating scandal was reprehensible and said such harsh penalties are appropriate when the academic mission of the university has been compromised."