Off Campus: Suddenly, football not an issue at Penn State

It seems so inconsequential right now. Really, who cares who coaches Penn State football next?

If you're paying tuition to Penn State right now, or attended the school, or care about the place at all, the issues involved go so far beyond bowl appearances, recruiting consequences, quarterback controversies, which coach is calling what plays, whether an old man is being stubborn or selfishly hanging on as coach.

None of those issues, as best we can determine, has the potential to outright ruin young lives. So who cares if Urban Meyer or Al Golden or Jon Gruden succeeds Joe Paterno? Sometime real soon, the question of succession will shoot back to the top of Penn State's priority list. Right now, the more pressing question is: Who fills the void at the top?

Nobody in the current chain of command should determine where the Nittany Lions go from here. Just from what a grand jury has revealed so far in the absolutely chilling Jerry Sandusky affair, the void of leadership stretches to the top. The powers behind the powers can't just clean house. They'll need to build the house back up from the foundation.

For years, it has been an ongoing debate about whether Paterno's successor needed to have Penn State ties. That question seems laughable right now. Replace ties with taint. Imagine the news conference if Penn State introduces the next man, a Penn State man, and the first question is about Sandusky - what the new man knew and when did he know it?

How can the next man possibly be a Penn State man?

The courts will sort out the facts of the criminal case against the former top Paterno defensive coordinator, indicted for a series of despicable acts against children, including a sexual act against a 10-year-old within the school's athletic complex. Further indictments announced Saturday were almost as shocking, accusing Penn State's athletic director and a senior vice president at the school of perjury and failing to follow mandatory state child-endangerment reporting laws.

If all this sounds like piling on in order to sell newspapers, get your head out of the sand. (Nothing sells newspapers.) This is about how a graduate assistant coach, now a full-time staff coach, witnessed a most disturbing act and went home and asked his father what he should do. His act of truth-telling, of decency, looks downright heroic if you believe the chain of events that followed according to the grand-jury report.

Ask most people what the main difference is between the two fine primary state universities of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the most common reply would have to be Paterno. He didn't just build a football dynasty and pay for a library. He built the school as it is today. Name another college coach who had such influence, such real and lasting impact? The list is . . . John Wooden at UCLA in hoops. End of list.

We were becoming increasingly convinced that Paterno would step down this year, that blessing Meyer as his successor would be such a triumphant note to go out on when you consider that Ohio State could get Meyer instead - that Paterno could beat the Buckeyes in a more meaningful way by retiring than by beating them in Columbus later this month.

But here we're slipping into caring what happens on a football field.

at 215-854-4489, mjensen@phillynews.com, or @Jensenoffcampus on Twitter. Read his "Off Campus" columns at www.philly.com/offcampus