Big Ten hammers PSU following NCAA sanctions

The Big Ten needed only two hours to follow the NCAA in further punishing Penn State on Monday.

“The accepted findings support the conclusion that our colleagues at Penn State, individuals that we have known and with whom we have worked for many years, have egregiously failed on many levels -- morally, ethically and potentially criminally. They have failed their great university, their faculty and staff, their students and alumni, their community and state -- and they have failed their fellow member institutions in the Big Ten Conference,” the league said in a statement.

Penn State received four more sanctions by the Big Ten after the football powerhouse was potentially crippled for the next decade by the NCAA:

• The school receives censure from the league, which amounts to an official condemnation of the actions of its adminstrators since 1998.
• The athletic department will be on probation for five years.
• The football team is ineligible for the Big Ten championship game for the next four years.
• The school is ineligible to share in the conference's bowl game revenue for the next four years, amounting to an estimated $13 million.

“What occurred at Penn State University is a consequence of the concentration of power that can result from a successful athletic program and the failure of institutional leadership to maintain institutional control,” the league said in a statement.