As the slippery situation at Penn State continues to develop, the firing of Joe Paterno affects all of college football.
Whether firing the winningest coach in college football was the right or wrong move can be debated, but it ended an era of something bigger than Penn State.
As Paterno's tenure ended, so did that of football's integrity. I witnessed a perfect example of this Saturday while in Sanford Stadium.
After a Georgia touchdown late in the second quarter, Mark Richt was flagged for excessive celebration. What actually happened was half the team and most of the coaching staff ran on the field, some to the end zone, to celebrate a score. They could have all been flagged.
The lack of restraint is clear, and it isn't the first time Richt and the Bulldogs have had full-team celebrations.
It's hard to forget the Georgia-Florida game in 2007 when Richt told the team to join running back Knowshon Moreno in the end zone after the first score of the game. They won that game, too.
Coaching legends don't react with that level of passion. In fact, most coaches punish players who celebrate rather than celebrate with players.
This year, especially, LSU has proven off-the-field problems are irrelevant as long as wins come on the field.
The Bayou Bengals have had multiple players suspended this year, some of which were starters, for actual crimes.
At what point is LSU going to acknowledge Les Miles cannot control his team off the field? Definitely not while the Tigers are No. 1.
There are only four major programs in the NCAA that have not faced major violations in any sport since 1953. One of them is Penn State. And, no, none of the other three are in the SEC.
That's respectable, and it's why no intelligent college football fan will allow the Jerry Sandusky scandal to cloud Paterno's legacy.
The SEC will never be able to compete with that. There are numerous great coaches in the conference, but the NCAA hands down secondary violations to the SEC like programs hand out scholarships.
Nothing else matters, though. With five straight national championships, SEC fans are too full of pride to admit some programs are nothing more than success on the field.
That's what football has come to. Richt's leadership on the field and Miles' attitude to things off the field show how far college football has fallen.
Integrity is dead.
College football is no longer about building character players can take with them in life. It's now strictly about winning on Saturdays. And if a coach can't do that, he's fired.
In the scandal, Paterno has been ridiculed for not doing all he could to prevent the awful alleged crimes, but you see it on a smaller scale in most of college football.
Coaches want the best players. It doesn't matter if they're the best human beings, and can you blame them?
Love it or hate it, fans might as well get used to it.
Welcome to the new college football.
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