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Penn State: Switzer says NCAA punishing wrong people (players)

BY JIMMIE TRAMEL World Sports Writer Monday, July 23, 2012

DALLAS -- During the first day of the Big 12’s annual preseason football media days, some coaches chose to avoid questions about NCAA penalties levied upon the Penn State football program.

“I won’t comment on that one,” TCU’s Gary Patterson said.

Meanwhile, former University of Oklahoma football coach Barry Switzer was busy using his new Twitter account to take the NCAA to task.

“Why are PSU fans and players penalized?” Switzer tweeted. “What was their violation? Attending PSU? NCAA got this one wrong!”

Penn State was fined $60 million and the football program will lose scholarships and bowl eligibility for the next four years.

The penalties were handed down after a report indicated former coach Joe Paterno and other Penn State officials kept quiet about accusations of child molestation by former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, who was convicted of sexually abusing 10 boys over a period of 15 years.

Switzer endorses any measures which hold the right people accountable. But among his problems with the NCAA penalty is the organization stepped outside the realm of things it normally polices (NCAA rules violations) and is punishing individuals -- players, fans, alums -- who had nothing to do with a tragic situation.

Contacted by telephone Monday, Switzer said, “Those players and coaches... who are out there busting their ass in spring practice getting ready to play, what the hell did they have to do with any of this?”

Later in the same conversation, Switzer said, “We can’t change what the sorry bastard Sandusky did, right? And everybody can have a knee jerk reaction that I’m not thinking about (the victims). They are full of crap. I am still thinking about them. But I am also thinking about the players that wanted to go to Penn State... That’s the school they wanted to go to. They had nothing to do with this. They had done everything right.”

Incoming and current Penn State players are immediately eligible to transfer and compete at another school.

“Everybody says they can go wherever they want to,” Switzer said. “But now they’re going to pick up and leave a school where they want to get a degree and fight for a job maybe I already had at another school and learn a new system?”

A player exodus would further gut the Nittany Lion program.

Kansas State coach Bill Snyder was asked at the Big 12 function what kind of challenge Penn State will face in the wake of sanctions. Snyder declined to talk about Penn State and said he was there to talk about his team. In a later interview, he said he was “heartbroken” by events in society and even alluded to a recent theater shooting in Colorado.

Switzer believes the penalties will have a death penalty-type affect on Penn State.

SMU, because of repeated and major rules infractions, was forced by the NCAA to drop football in 1987. SMU also opted to skip the 1988 season before rebooting.

“Did SMU ever come back?” Switzer asked. “Not in the league they were in. They are out of that league.”

Switzer said the combination of severe penalties and trying to compete in the Big Ten will mean that Penn State is “through.”

“It will destroy not just the football program, it will destroy other programs at that university,” he said, citing fund-raising.

“There’s always direct correlations with the success of athletic programs and how other programs (at the university) do. You know that. I know that.”

Switzer said the NCAA took five years to investigate USC Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush before announcing a punishment. He indicated that no players played a role in the Penn State situation and a sentence was handed down swiftly (one week after the Freeh report was released). He questions whether the NCAA should have acted before the completion of a perjury trial for Penn State officials accused of lying to a grand jury.

“It’s just because (some members) of the media went out there and championed this,” Switzer said. “The media liked to think this was a fire they could control. They can get people elected and fired -- presidents, coaches fired and hired. They got a scalp. They wanted a scalp and got it.”