Some more thoughts on Penn State and subsidiary issues...

The Big Ten should suspend it's divisional setup for one year.  In fact, if it doesn't, the NCAA should step in and deny the school the right to have the Legends Division winner play Wisconsin in Indianapolis in December for the right to play in the Rose Bowl.

Why am I so sure on this?  There are only FOUR eligible teams in the Leaders Division now.  Ohio State serves it's one-year penalty this year (I thought it was last year.)  Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Purdue are the four schools.  I can't see any of the other three touching the Badgers.

So I agree with "Dan from the Moon" on the Big Ten mailblog on ESPN yesterday:

"Why doesn't the B1G do away with divisions this year? Just keep the schedules the way they are and the top 2 teams go to Indy for the championship game. It's not really fair that one conference is only a 4 (reality 3) team race to go to the Championship game. Why should everybody in the other division have to fight 2 more teams?And while they are at it they can do away with the division names. It's embarrassing to have 2 teams in the Leaders division ineligible due to LEADERSHIP violations."

The Big Ten certainly has some decisions to make.  In about 3-5 years, I think the Big Ten may have to find a new 12th member (see next post below for why!).

The Big Ten should already be only 11 schools anyway, as Penn State should've been expelled from the conference upon the sanctions -- why else was Penn State brought into the Big Ten in the first place?

You could easily have an 8-4, 7-5 team that is 5-3, at best, in the Big Ten, from that division.  Everybody on the schedule still has to play the two ineligible sides, but, since the NCAA requires a certain number of conference teams for a title game, should it not also require a certain number of eligible teams in a division?

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Go down the mailblog, and it becomes clear that the plea-bargain came with a very strong stick.

Someone is lying.  They interviewed Oregon State's Ed Ray, who was part of the process, and he said that there was never a discussion to suspend play.

So why does Penn State agree to anything, with absolutely no position from which to bargain?

Mark Emmert, the President of the NCAA, told Yahoo! Sports that the Death Penalty was openly threatened for multiple seasons.

So who's telling the truth, and why is it being said out of both sides of your mouth?

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If the Penn State situation and Bountygate are not two prime cases for the creation of Howard Cosell's National Sports Commission that he proposed in his book decades ago, I know not what is.

We need a body that can shut down games, shut down teams, shut down sanctioning bodies who refuse to conform to even the smallest segment of human decency.

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Kinda off the track a bit, but one might wonder if Bob Costas might be up to the task.

He's going to take on the International Olympic Committee in a little more than 48 hours.

In the Opening Ceremony in London, the IOC denied requests for a moment of silence when Israel's athletes enter the stadium, in rememberance of the Munich massacre in 1972.

Costas is going to do something in defiance of that directive.  Exactly what, we'll find out on Friday...