Blue White Illustrated

Will this off-season be marred by legal proceedings and other off-thefield controversy? It probably won't be like last year – nothing could be like last year, with its seemingly endless succession of ghastly headlines – but the wheels of justice are still turning. The trial of former athletic director Tim Curley and former university vice president Gary Schultz, originally set to begin Jan. 7, has been postponed indefinitely. Deposed Penn State president Graham Spanier is now up on charges of perjury, child endangerment and obstruction of justice, and former Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly said in November that she thought the three former Penn State officials should be tried together. The trial is relevant to Penn State's football program in that the NCAA's sanctions were based on charges outlined in the Freeh report that university leaders concealed their knowledge of Sandusky's sexual abuse of children in order to protect the program. If Curley, Schultz and Spanier were to be acquitted, it would undermine the NCAA's rationale for levying unprecedented sanctions against Penn State. One of the most compelling arguments against the sanctions has been that the NCAA used ambiguous evidence from the Freeh report to hand down arguably the harshest judgment in the organization's history. Of course, convictions would have the opposite effect, reaffirming the sanctions' validity. To date, the NCAA has given no indication that it plans revisit the penalties, regardless of the outcome of the upcoming legal proceedings. At a panel discussion in State College in October, former NCAA executives Cedric Dempsey and Gene Corrigan urged Penn State to forget about fighting the NCAA in court. "I don't know that you've got a lot to fight with," Corrigan said. The panelists said it was time for Penn Staters to accept the sanctions and move on. But that's been tough. So great is the desire for a reprieve that some fans have begun turning their attention from the court cases to the latest spasm of conference realign- 4 ment, the idea being that the nascent superconferences will break with the NCAA and form their own governing structure that would render Penn State's sanctions null and void. This, of course, would have to happen in the next three years. Seems unlikely. In the meantime, various other legal proceedings are under way. Sandusky wants his $59,000 annual pension restored, while former assistant coach Mike McQueary has filed a $4 million whistleblower lawsuit against the university. Penn State's attorneys have argued that the case shouldn't go forward until after Curley, Schultz and Spanier face trial. The Sandusky case has had the effect of making the standard college football court docket items – underage drinking citations, parking tickets, fights – seem pretty inconsequential by comparison. But it is worth noting that this past football season was blessedly free of off-the-field foolishness. That may have been partly due to the circle-the-wagons mentality that players brought into the season, and also to the presence of a strong senior class that commanded respect. But it also looks as though O'Brien runs a pretty tight ship. He didn't waste any time getting rid of Shawn Oakman, and Penn State later parted ways with Devon Smith and Curtis Drake. Once the season began, the disciplinary headlines ceased altogether. Here's hoping that streak continues. What is O'Brien's future at Penn State? Now we're getting down to brass tacks. Of all the questions about the direction of the Nittany Lion football program, this one matters most. After hedging initially, O'Brien told an Atlanta radio station in November that he fully expected to be back in 2013. "That's my plan, and that's what I intend to do," he said. The coach's agent, Joe Linta, provided further assurance later that day, telling ESPN that O'Brien "is staying, and we've had no conversations with anyone else." That was certainly good to hear. If O'Brien were to leave in the next few weeks for Kansas City or Philadelphia 5 or any of the nine or 10 NFL franchises that are about to go looking for a new head coach, the ripple effect would be devastating. It's not hard to imagine his departure triggering a mass exodus that would gut the roster. It would certainly cause the 2013 recruiting class to scatter, with disastrous implications for a program that is shedding 40 scholarships during the next four seasons. Having this issue resolved may not fix all the Lions' problems, but it does allow them to go full speed ahead on the recruiting front and head into the winter conditioning program knowing who's in charge and what the expectations are. The next question is obvious: What will it take to keep O'Brien here longterm? The university extended his original five-year contract by four years after the announcement of the NCAA's sanctions, so he's under contract for the next eight seasons. However, there is a provision in the deal that would allow O'Brien to buy out the remainder of the contract. And although it's unclear whether he would be required to buy out the entire contract ($18.4 million) or only the four years remaining on the initial pact ($9.2 million), we do know that the cost will diminish as O'Brien coaches more seasons. We also know that O'Brien is highly regarded in the NFL after spending four years on Bill Belichick's staff in New England. He was in contention for the Jacksonville Jaguars' head coaching job before taking over at Penn State last January and turned up on just about every pundit's list of potential candidates as soon as it became clear which NFL teams were likely to be in the market this winter. Penn State's 8-4 finish has only enhanced O'Brien's stature. He turned the Big Ten's 10th-most-productive offense into its fourth-most-productive offense, helped Matt McGloin break the school record for most passing yards in a season and provided marvelous off-the-field leadership for a team that was in shell shock after the NCAA handed down its penalties. A former AFC personnel executive, speaking anonymously, told NFL.com recently that he foresaw big things for

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