Penn State football stretches beyond field

Nobody cared who won the Nebraska-Penn State game. It didn’t matter that the game was close. It didn’t matter that Penn State had a chance to walk away with the win in the dying seconds of the game. And it didn’t matter that the players failed on the Hail Mary to finish things off.

After the crazy week Penn State football has been subjected to, it was a meaningless game. The coaching staff was not at all focused. In fact, they shouldn’t have been.

This week has been a whirlwind of headlines, including the sexual harassment charges, loss of jobs and end of a career for Head Coach Joe Paterno, who leaves a legacy of football excellence behind, despite the blemish this controversy has left.

At kickoff, the team was not prepared to play a game. I’m sure the adrenaline kept players competitive and allowed them to stay in contention up to the final minutes. Yet the game was meaningless because of what Penn State football needs to overcome: not an opponent or an adversary, but itself.

Football extends way beyond the field. Team members remain close, and the decisions players and coaches make off the field can be just as much a detriment to the success of the program as anything that happens between the lines.

With all the coverage associated with the allegations and bad press, the team’s focus cannot be on football. Peoples’ minds are on what exactly went down with the members of the coaching staff, how the team should have handled this and how to get past it.

Now that it is November, Penn State, as well as all other colleges, is focused on recruiting new students, whether it be to the football program or to the school as a whole. The football program’s main focus should be to reevaluate and revamp the image of the college.

A college student wants an education. Part of this education is learning moral and ethical behavior, as well as the way to handle stressful situations. Penn State officials have a long way to go to learn this before passing that information to students.

The rest of this football season must occur; it would be ridiculous to cancel the rest of the games, especially when the fans have paid for tickets to see their team play. On the other hand, the football program should concentrate on returning to a moral high ground and returning to the status it had before everything blew up.

Without the ageless Paterno, this is going to be a challenge. Losing a main legacy from this program is just as much of a detriment as the actions as a whole. A football team is about playing hard and winning. A college is about education. Therefore, a college football team is about teaching college students how to play hard and well.

Penn State is not doing either.

­— azoot@indiana.edu