Unprecedented Pennalty

Wow. Where to begin? The NCAA went H.A.M on Penn State and in typical NCAA fashion, it went way too far. I know this punishment for the Jerry Sandusky scandal isn't the death penalty, but it's beyond harsh. Let’s start out with the punishment:

• $60 million fine
• Four-year postseason football ban
• Five-year probation for athletic department
• Four-year scholarship reduction (10 initial; 20 total)
• Vacating wins from 1998-2011 (112 wins)

And from the Big 10 conference, Penn State received (among others) these punishments:

• Four-year ban from Big 10 championship game
• Reallocating Penn State’s forfeited share of conference bowl revenue. Approximately $13 million will go to Big 10 community charities dedicated to protecting children.

I included these two sanctions by the Big 10 conference as an example of perfectly reasonable ways to punish both the university and the football program, without arbitrarily trying to revise the past or excessively hurting current and future student-athletes. That second punishment by the conference gets a round of applause.The Big 10 came up with this Solomon like decision and they can’t even count!

I’m on board with the first four NCAA penalties. Money talks, so that $60 million fine is the only way to get the attention of a University with a $1.7 billion endowment. Secondly, the postseason ban for the football program is a must. Penn state can’t stand to potentially make millions of dollars in extraneous postseason competition while under punishment. OK, moving on.

I didn't even blink twice when I saw probation for the athletic department and scholarship reductions. A central issue in the Sandusky scandal is poor institutional oversight by PSU and these penalties are punitive oversight measures. Yawn, what’s next?  Vacating wins from 1998-2011. You cannot be serious!  I don’t understand vacating wins as a punishment. How do you read a record book with vacated wins, especially one with 112 vacated wins? Like this? It just doesn’t make sense

The vacated wins means that the last football game Joe Paterno officially won was November 22, 1997 instead of October 29, 2011. They mean that instead of ending his career with most wins all-time (409), Joe Paterno is now 12^th in career wins (298). The farce of the vacated wins punishment is that they don’t make Penn State return the MONEY that they won from these wins (ticket sales, concessions, conference bowl revenue, etc.). Altering record books pales in comparison to altering pocketbooks.

Players from 1998-2011 are also hurt by the vacated wins and none of them knew about the Sandusky scandal or the university’s cover-up. Adam Taliaferro, a former PSU football player that successfully rehabbed from a spinal injury he sustained in a 2000 game, tweeted: “NCAA says games didn't exist... I got the metal plate in my neck to prove it did..I almost died playing 4 PSU..punishment or healing?!? #WeAre.”

Taliaferro is a current member of PSU board of directors; obviously, he and hundreds of teammates will have an issue with the vacated wins when they put themselves at physical risk to have a grand total of zero wins in 13 years of football sorta-kinda-but-not-really played.

What do you think about the NCAA’s sanctions? Take the poll to the right

Weekend Onions!

Ok, this is just unacceptable. THREE weeks without "Weekend Onions!"? All I can say for myself is, like Mark McGuire, I'm not here to talk about the past.

Moving on, two weekends ago, the "Mangenius", Cleveland Brown's head coach Eric Mangini, decided to break into the weekend onions report with a delicious fake punt.

Let's set the stage for the Mangenius' trickeration:

• Leading the New Orleans Saints 10-3 in the 2nd quarter, the Browns are facing a 4th and 6  pinned back on their OWN 23
• With only 5:32 left in the half, the conventional wisdom says kick the punt and play defense
• The Mangenius bucks conventional wisdom and goes for the final move to complete the road upset: a huge play on special teams
• The end result: this 68-yard run by the punter Reggie Hodges right down Main Street to the New Orleans 9

The ensuing drive only resulted in a field goal  for the Browns (and a 13-3) lead, but the Browns showed their intentions and eventually won 30-17. No, we're not gonna go drop the Browns off at the Super Bowl, but congratulations to the Mangenius and the Browns for an Onions! play call

Also, I would be remiss if I did not mention the Onions! decision by LSU head coach Les Miles a few weekends ago (October 9th 2010) against the Florida Gators.

Not too long ago, Disney remade Alice in Wonderland (I didn't watch it, so I'm gonna exercise this thing I'm learning about called "self-restraint" and keep all opinions of this movie to myself). I only bring this superb demonstration of cinematic brilliance (tongue firmly in cheek) because of the character the Mad Hatter. I don't know why the executives at Disney sent out a casting call for the Mad Hatter. The real life Mad Hatter resides in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and "coaches" the Louisiana State University Tigers. I use the term "coaches" loosely here because what Miles does on the sideline is closer to letting a drunk fratstar in Las Vegas with his dad's black card than the contemplative, rationale exercise I presume coaching to be.

I'll set the stage for the Mad Hatter's return to glory

• 35 seconds left in the game and LSU trails by 3 points 
• The Tigers face a 4th and 3 from the Florida 35 yard line and need a 53 yard field goal to send the game into overtime
• Field goal kicker Josh Jasper needs to nail this kick, a career long in distance if it happens
• Les Miles has better ideas than leaving this game in the hands (er, feet) of a kicker and reaches into his bag of crazy and produces this magic

Let the record note that the ball BOUNCED on the NO-LOOK heave over the shoulder by the holder before the kicker picked it up (noted). Les Miles knows Onions! A few years ago we did an x-ray of Les Miles and found this:



No wonder this guy is a favorite here at Gimme Some Onions!

(Ok, so we didn't actually do this x-ray, it was made by LSUfreek for one of our favorite blogs "Every Day Should Be Saturday". Original post from EDSBS can be found here)

Also, this isn't the first time that Miles has called this particular fake field goal. Against South Carolina in 2007, Miles dialed up this play call and things ran more smoothly. The kicker received the no-look toss perfectly and ran into the end-zone untouched. Check it out here. To paraphrase one of my favorite lines in Forrest Gump, "Crazy is as crazy does"