Wrote this early this morning but texags had gone stupid and I couldn't post.

What a lot of people seem to fail to realize is that penalties/punishments serve two purposes. The first is to exact justice on the offending party, but the second is to deter other potential offenders from committing the same type of crime.

By going soft on PSU, the NCAA is encouraging the Florida States of the world to continue the "football above all else (including people)" culture that is so pervasive. This also encourages the Oklahomas of the world that as long as you self-report and have a mid-level fall guy to can, you can evade punishment because "the offender is no longer here".

The penalties were not just for Joe-Pa or the president or whoever, the penalties were aimed at the institution that allowed this heinous act and even went so far as to cover it up. The institution (PSU) is still there even if the individuals are gone. There is absolutely no good reason for the penalties to have been lifted other than the NCAA being afraid the B1G would fall out of contention for the playoff and they would lose viewers/revenue. The whole thing is BS.

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This is a unique case in that the cover-up was to avoid damage

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I don't agree that this is true. Paterno simply wasn't going to blow the whistle on Sandusky for anything. He didn't really care what he was doing. And Paterno had the PSU admin by the nuts so they weren't going to do anything. The head-in-the-sand attitude had nothing to do with keeping PSU off any news or NCAA radar and everything to do with keeping Sandusky employed by the university, or at least, protecting his access to facilities.

The reason for this whole thing, beyond the specific actions of Sandusky, were Paterno's indifference and his support by the spineless idiots in administration -- which Paterno got from PSU's fans' undying loyalty reserved for spiritual figures. So while I don't think the NCAA had jurisdiction here, I couldn't care less how much the PSU faithful, particularly those Paterno suck-asses, suffer.

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This is pretty darn close to "coupland boy is right, paterno became the institution, and the administration, fans, not even the university itself could control the institution".