Around the 'Shoe

I think they'll survive, it's just going to be a rough road.

I'm with ya on the trip to Happy Valley this year though...Buckeye fans that decide to go need to be incredibly careful about where you venture. I'd recommend keeping a low profile, particularly after the game on the way to your car.

Could they really be any worse than IU and Minny?

I say the 1st 2 years will be tough on PSU, then the talent level and the program will be horrible by year 3, and then the fans and outside fans will start rooting for PSU because they will be the underdogs.

I think they survive, but they will survive after 4 years as being the lower to mid-tier team in the B1G. 6 years from now, the fans will start to come unravelled, and then a coaching change might be happening. This might set them back another 3 years.

The major problem, as far as I understand, is that they are scheduled to have only 60 available scholarships in 2015?

Is it 3 years, or 4 Razor? I know next year they drop 10, but I wasn't clear about how long it lasted with 20.

They could spread those 65 scholarships over 75-80 players by giving partial scholarships to borderline players. These are in-state players who will take a partial scholarship to Penn State rather than being a preferred walk-on at Ohio State, Michigan or Pitt. Another source of talent is the JUCO and prep schools, where every year many of them walk on to schools in their home state.

I disagree. Yes, they will lose some players to transfer and the scholarship reduction will hurt. But so far, there has not been a mass exodus. This means they should be respectable the next couple years. They will be in the lower tier of the BIG - Indiana level - for years 3 and 4, but then they will start to rebuild. Within a decade, they should easily be back to bowl team level. It's not as if they been some national powerhouse lately. Losing a few more games a year is not the end of the world for them.

I remember living in the Tampa Bay area when USF started a program from scratch. Within a decade, they made it into the top five for a week or two and are pretty respectable year in and year out.

They will still get some elite talent. PSU fans growing up and wanting to play for their dream school. Pennsylvania is a 5 star rich state and a lot of kids want to stay close to home. Diggs is a good example. They just wont be able to get an abundance of talented kids with low schollies. USC became irrelevant for a few years in the PAC-10 and you saw other teams like Oregon benefit from it.

They may be respectable this year, as the timing of the sanctions pretty much assured the current team stays intact, with the possible exception of Redd. However, next year they'll fall fast and hard, and it gets worse for the next 5 years after. They can't really take anyone in this class, and don't forget that last years class was pretty much gutted by Urban. So their talent level is already being eroded even before the sanctions start. There's no way they can compete even with Indiana given the lack of depth and talent. And with the state this team will be in come 5 years from now, why would any top players want to go there? It'll take a dynamic new coach and some time to turn them around. Besides, even if they were to get Saban to come in, and recruit the #1 class, it would take about 3 years for those guys to make them competitive with the big boys. At minimum this is an 8 year rebuild.

Yeah I believe basically for the next ~4 years they can only sign a maximum of 15 kids per year, and are capped at 65 scholarships max, so basically as their seniors graduate (or transfer), they can only replace so many of them. Their scholarship roster is going to start shrinking quickly over the next couple of years because they will only be allowed to add so many back in to replace them. This is where we'll start seeing their ability to compete with teams begin to diminish.

True that.

I strongly disagree that top in-staters will go there after this year. They will do well to get 5 of the top 20 in state for the next 5 years, and they'll have to settle for MAC prospects from elsewhere. I'll give O'Brien this though, he must be an excellent salesman to keep his current players together. If he's as good a coach, they'll be respectable for the first couple of years. But NO ONE can overcome such scholarship losses unless they're playing in a very weak conference. Though a cynic may say the B1G is really not that strong.

The storm however, is not yet over. The DOE could slam them, their insurance company is going to fight with them over who's responsible for liability settlements to victims, their credit rating is facing a dowgrade, which has serious consequences to their ability to borrow money, and there's the very real chance that more dirt is going to be uncovered at the trials of Schultz and Curley, not to mention the possibility Spanier may face charges as well. You can't tell me those guys are going to bite the bullet to protect that shit-hole institution rather than ameliorate the charges against them. I expect them to sing like birds, and further harm Joe's legacy. They will be worse than Indiana in 3 years.