So I've spent quite some time reading up and listening to opinions of this over the last 24 hours. Enough to make me want to puke. And at the risk of rehashing a lot of feelings on this thread - holy **** this whole thing demands axes fall all over State College.
I have to admit, the Gary Barnett experience has made me extremely suspicious of the media in these situations. When everyone jumps to one place this quickly, I tend to want to not jump there, because that's what ****ed us in the first place. But, once I read/saw/heard more about it, here are my thoughts:
1. There HAD to be a cover-up. The pieces of the puzzle don't fit any other way. Sandusky was next in line to be HC at PSU, he was only 54, his defense was one of the best in the nation, and he suddenly retires? And now we find out it was shortly after someone caught him molesting a kid? No way that's all coincidence. Then you have McQueary. I don't know why that guy didn't stop the rape in process, it's been discussed to death here and I won't go into it now, but the fact that he somehow went from GA to a position coach is again too much of a coincidence. There's just no way I can believe that the two had nothing to do with one another. Just those two things are enough to implicate many of the people in the football program and the athletic department at large, imo.
2. If you believe that there was a cover-up, obviously the entire football staff and the majority of the AD staff have to go. There are probably going to be some innocent people caught up in the football staff purge, but there is no way that PSU can even begin to remove the stain with a single person retained from that staff.
3. Joe Pa's role to me is still mysterious. It is becoming more and more obvious to me that at the very minimum, he is guilty of grossly mismanaging his program. I would really like to know what exactly McQueary said to him, what he said to the AD, and what he knew about Sandusky's actions prior. It seems to me that, if you take McQueary's word (and I don't know why you wouldn't at this point), Joe Pa was probably told something more graphic than 'horsing around in a shower'. I don't know if McQueary said what I probably would have said - I would have been extremely explicit - but it seems that Joe Pa, if we take him at his word, watered it down - a lot. If that is taken together with prior knowledge of Sandusky's proclivities, then Joe Pa's actions start to become not only fireable, but potentially criminal.
4. The timing of this information coming out is highly suspicious. That's another thing that bothers me tremendously. It seems highly unlikely to me that this 'secret' grand jury would just so happen to finish up right after Paterno sets the all-time wins record. It seems to me to be another piece in this puzzle that tells me that there was a massive cover-up. During the 'scandal', there were multiple times that I wished that Boulder embraced CU and CU football specifically the way that other college towns do. Now, while I wish there wasn't such an difficult relationship between the city and school, I can see why you don't want it to be the other way, either. I don't care that Joe Pa and PSU football defines State College, but it's obvious that the people there do. You can see how **** like this happens, when an entire community treats all these people like gods. They start believing they are gods, and that their institutions are more important than anything else, even little kids' lives.
5. The NCAA's reaction to this will be interesting. As has been said before, the NCAA doesn't really have a lot of jurisdiction in this regard, because it doesn't really involve the areas that the NCAA is supposed to police. I have seen people calling for probation, penalties, even the death penalty. That's bull****. Everyone involved with this needs to be punished, and Jerry Sandusky needs to go to jail for his short layover before he goes to hell, but only a moron thinks that any of the student-athletes need to be punished. They're going to be punished enough, having to deal with all of this ****. I wouldn't be surprised to see a ton of kids transfer, and PSU recruiting is going to suck for years from now. But for those kids who are stuck there for the next 1-4 years, the NCAA doesn't need to add to their problems by adding sanctions.
6. Just heard of Joe Pa's retirement release. That pisses me off. If he's resigning right now, it's because he obviously has accepted that he did something wrong. If he does realize he did something wrong, he needs to quit today. No graceful exit. Just take a hike.