I'm interested in the statement that the Big 10 and Pac 10 have the highest academic standards in the country; relative to who?

There was pretty big worry that Nebraska would not be invited to the Big 10 because they not part of the AAU, but money trumps all.

I'm interested in the statement that the Big 10 and Pac 10 have the highest academic standards in the country; relative to who?

I'd put the ACC ahead of the Pac 10, and maybe ahead of the Big 10 as well.

I'm just going off a thing I read. The ACC is also much stronger than the SEC and Big East (so forth), but its best schools don't really live up to the Pac-10's California schools (save USC). They also don't have one that ranks as low as Colorado does in most areas.

So if I'm a Harvard scholar with a productive collaboration at Penn State, I'm going to drop it because my collaborator's football conference affiliation changed?

Where the Rose Bowl conferences blow away the ACC is research dollars and average enrollment, if I recall. I'll have to look for the thing I was reading last night.

Interestingly, this came out very differently than what I expected. I'm pretty biased as a Cal alum from the West Coast, so take this with a grain of salt, but I'm pretty surprised at how highly Duke, Wake Forest and BC are ranked specifically. Sample size of 1, but for undergrad I was accepted to Duke but neither Stanford, Cal or UCLA.

At least when I was applying to grad schools (in 2006), Cal, for example, seemed like it had a top 3 ranking in nearly every department, and its reputation worldwide seems to stem in large part to its ever-growing stable of Nobel Laureates, which speaks more to its research than its undergrad.

I'm pretty biased as a Cal alum from the West Coast, so take this with a grain of salt, but I'm pretty surprised at how highly Duke, Wake Forest and BC are ranked specifically.

Schools rankings in the latest US News Top 50

The US News rankings are very suspect

are there actually independent standards to which conferences force member schools to adhere?

US News Rankings are skewed towards private schools because of class size, alumni giving and graduation rate.

US News Rankings are skewed towards private schools because of class size, alumni giving and graduation rate.

"BCS" schools in the 2011-12 top 50 are:

Stanford (T-2)
Berkley (10)
UCLA (13)
Michigan (18)
Duke (22)
Georgia Tech (24)
Washington (25)
Northwestern (26)
Wisconsin (27)
Texas (29)
Illinois (31)
Minnesota (42)
North Carolina (43)

Penn State was 51st.

USC's academic is pretty high up there

Similarly, UVA is a rough peer for Michigan or Cal, but unlike those schools, but unlike those schools UVA has been been a mediocre athletic program for a generation.

When I went [to Illinois] 30 some years ago, it was the 3rd or 4th ranked Engineering school in the country, behind MIT, Cal Tech, and maybe Stanford. My wife and I both have engineering degrees, me from Illinois, she from Stanford. So naturally she is an airline pilot and I work construction part time. Life is funny.

I was never under the impression that USC had much of a rep, outside the law school and the grad film program.

I bet the NCAA sets a record of on-side kicks and the number of squib kicks will go crazy.

Apparently Moody's is thinking

Has anyone read anything about this? I was wondering if anyone has seen a breakdown of points per possession based on starting field position.

Kickoffs have high injury rates.

Stephon Morris ? @ 12_darKnight
We have chosen to stay at PSU & other opposing coaches are outside our apartment. Was that the intentions of the NCAA # LeaveUsAlone # WeAre

Hurried discussions began almost immediately after Erickson was informed of the possible sanctions by NCAA president Mark Emmert. The report stated that had Penn State not negotiated and agreed to the sanctions they ultimately were hit with, the NCAA would have begun a formal investigation and faced a multi-year death penalty and a fine even greater than the one they will pay out.

Kickoffs have high injury rates.

You can see why.

To Whom It May Concern:

On behalf of my clients, the Paterno family, who are the living representatives of Joseph V. Paterno and his estate, we file this notice of intent to appeal the NCAA’s consent decree entered against The Pennsylvania State University. Pursuant to NCAA Bylaw 32.10.1, the Paterno Family notes that the consent decree was publicly released on July 23, 2012. Pursuant to NCAA Bylaws 32.1.5 and 32.10.1.2, Mr. Paterno qualifies as an involved individual because he is named in the NCAA’s consent decree as well as the Freeh report, which provided the alleged factual basis for the consent decree. Finally, pursuant to NCAA Bylaw 32.10.1, the Paterno family requests the opportunity to submit its appeal in writing, and it requests an in-person oral argument before the Infractions Appeals Committee.

The estate undertakes this appeal to redress the enormous damage done to Penn State, the State College community, former, current and future student and student athletes, Joe Paterno and certain others involved, as a result of the unprecedented actions taken by the NCAA.

As will become evident in a thorough and impartial review, the NCAA acted hastily and without any regard for due process. Furthermore, the NCAA and Penn State’s Board Chair and President entirely ignored the fact that the Freeh Report, on which these extraordinary penalties are based, is deeply flawed because it is incomplete, rife with unsupported opinions and unquestionably one-sided. The NCAA and Penn State’s leadership, by accepting and adopting the conclusions of the Freeh report, have maligned all of the above without soliciting contrary opinions or challenging a single finding of the Freeh report. Given the extraordinary penalty handed out, prudence and justice require that scrupulous adherence to due process be observed and not completely ignored.

Both the University leadership and the NCAA have said that they had to take extreme and immediate measures to demonstrate respect for the victims and minimize the chance of any similar misconduct from occurring again. These goals are the right ones, and they embody objectives we fully endorse. But those objectives cannot be achieved by a truncated process that wrongly assigns blame by substituting opinion for fact.

If there is culpabability in this case, a hearing will help expose it. Due process will not hide the truth and will only illuminate the facts and allow for thoughtful, substantiated conclusions, not extreme and unfounded opinions, such as those offered in the Freeh Report and relied upon by the NCAA.

This matter may be the most important disciplinary action in the history of the NCAA, and it has been handled in a fundamentally inappropriate and unprecedented manner. To severely punish a University and its community and to condemn a great educator, philanthropist and coach without any public review or hearing is unfair on its face and a violation of NCAA guidelines.

Accordingly, we submit this appeal in pursuit, finally, of due process. A fair hearing on the merits is in the interests of justice and fairness for all involved.

We look forward to your acknowledgement of receipt of this timely appeal. In your acknowledgement, we would appreciate confirmation of the exact date triggering the 30-day period for us to submit a written response in support of our appeal.

Respectfully,

J. Sedwick Sollers III

Comments:
1-The president is appearing on a sports talk radio show?

Heh--I checked into this thread for the sole purpose of posting almost exactly the same questions Ray just posted. (Apparently, we were both absent the day this was covered in class.)

I never, in fact, took a course that covered the ins and outs of collegiate sports federation bylaws.

STEAGLES posts in this thread are so sad. When hero worship leaves you defending the honor of someone who put their reputation over protecting children from a rapist....

But I'm amused at your hand wave over 2001. There's documentary and witness evidence that Paterno was informed of the incident, in all it's glorious detail. 1998 establishes that Paterno knew the significance of the accusation. It's all very simple.

Paterno was not just a football coach, but the most powerful administrator of a university who built a brand on doing things "better", more honestly and ethically than everyone else. He traded on his Ivy League roots. And in the end, he was self-interested and ethically bankrupt.

i think the fact that he wasn't prosecuted at that time, despite overwhelming evidence of his guilt, could instead have sent the signal that the behavior was not legally prohibited.

what did he personally have to gain as a result of burying sandusky's crimes?

i think it's clear that he's no longer saint joe paterno of state college,

i don't think joe paterno is without blame in this, but there was a criminal investigation of sandusky in 1998 that was led by the centre county district attorney, and which produced a taped recording of sandusky confessing to the molestation of a teenage boy. and yet, there was no prosecution that resulted from that. is that on joe paterno?

and regarding the 2001 incident, the mcqueary one, i find it fairly implausible that paterno would bury an incident of child rape for the sole purpose of protecting his legacy. however, considering the relatively recent revelations surrounding the institutionalized protection of pedophile priests within the catholic church, i cannot dismiss that as a possibility.

firstly, and most obviously, joe paterno did not rape anyone. that was jerry sandusky.

but more relevantly, joe paterno was never in a position to defend himself from the accusations against him. by the time of sandusky's arrest in november, his mental faculties were pretty significantly impaired, and i honestly just do not think that he grasped the gravity of the events that were taking place.**

and while 1998 should have established the fact that sandusky was a serial predator, i think the fact that he wasn't prosecuted at that time, despite overwhelming evidence of his guilt, could instead have sent the signal that the behavior was not legally prohibited.

and further, i think the fact that sandusky's victims were boys clouded the issue on campus, since people knew him as a married man who raised 5 children (some of whom were abused, some of whom were adopted), and i think there was hesitancy to out him by making his actions public.

i think a lot of people on campus knew he was doing something, but i also think the vast majority of them thought he was just a closeted homosexual as opposed to a serial pedophile, and i don't think anyone wanted to be the one to look too closely into what he was doing.

what did he personally have to gain as a result of burying sandusky's crimes?

if you're agreeing with me that joe paterno bears no responsibility for the lack of action related to the 1998 incident, then what this comes down to is one decision made over 48 hours in the life of someone who lived 86 years. this wasn't the tip of an iceberg. there haven't been new revelations that brought to light paterno's involvement with a secret underground railroad that worked to protect serial child-rapists.

paterno never had the opportunity to defend himself against the charges being made against him, so i'll grant you that it is possible that he really is the craven, self-interested enabler that went out of his way to protect his child-raping buddy, jerry sandusky, but i think it's much more likely that he was a good man, who did the wrong thing at the wrong time for the wrong reason, and whose legacy of leadership and achievement will forever be overshadowed by his inaction at that one moment in his life.

i think it's clear that he's no longer saint joe paterno of state college, but i also think it's fairly unreasonable to paint his entire legacy as a fraud based upon an incomplete history of his handling of this situation.