I'm with OrlandoCat.

If the NCAA punishes Penn St. they'll be overstepping their grounds. What happened was not NCAA related or a violation of NCAA rules. It was a horrible man that broke the law with the university he's affiliated with that trying to cover it up.

If you look at the mess as a university issue instead of a sports issue, it becomes obvious that the football team shouldn't be held captive to massive penalties.

Also, if you are going to punish Penn State for what happened, show me what NCAA rules they broke, the precedent under those rules for them to punished, and why they deserve the punishment.

I don't buy the argument that the NCAA will find rules that they broke just to punish them. That's a lazy way of saying, "I don't know what they actually violated but since they did something horribly wrong, they deserve be punished."

Show me what PSU's penalty should be. And don't say Death Penalty. That is the last thing in the world that'll ever happen to them.

As I stated before; loss of Institutional control refers to REPEATED offences to NCAA guidelines.  There were no NCAA infractions in this care, much less repeated offences.

And for the record, it took me about 10 seconds to type 'Define loss of institutional control' into a google seach bar and find the definition.

People did get fired...and sent to jail.  What does that have to do with banning Penn State football and/or athletics?  What grounds does the NCAA have when none of its rules were violated?

Again, if Sandusky had worked for a bank, and JoePa was the branch manager, and the AD was the DM, and they all are fired...do you then turn to the bank and shut down the entire company?  Just the branch?  Who would shut it down - the mayor of the city?  Jamie Diamond?

I'm wondering if this had happened in the NFL, would we want that team to disband as well?  Would it be up to Roger Goodell? 

Good post, Mo Jo.  That letter from the NCAA is quite revealing.  Anyone who thinks the NCAA is not going to come down hard on PSU might change their mind if they looked at what this letter said. 

1.  The letter above is from the President of the NCAA to Penn State...How does this not prove that the NCAA is over stepping its bounds?  A guy who feels he has to act, is acting...this doesn't disprove anything I've said at all really, more just backs-up what others have said about public outcry.  Again, this doesn't mean the NCAA is operating outside the scope of what it's ment to do.

2.  And hind-sight is 20/20.  We say it gave them a competitive advantage now, because JoePa went on to win Big 10 titles after 2001.  Had he floundered for 2 more season and been canned in '03, would we be saying "Success with Honor" is an advantage?  The Baylor/Bliss incident happened in '03 - How long did it take Baylor to bounce back?  Less then 3 years.  And Baylor Basketball is nothing compared to Penn State Football.  Success with Honor is just that...a slogan.

3 and 4.  Like I stated before (maybe 2 posts ago) If the NCAA launches a probe (which we all know they will) and they uncover actual NCAA violations, for which they punish Penn State, that is fine.  But to punish Penn State based on the Sandusky case is once again a gross over-step of what its own stated purpose is.

If you think Penn State should be punished for this by the NCAA, then shouldn't you also think the Bengals should be punnished by Goodel, because of this:  http://abcnews.go.com/US/bengals-cheerleader-pleads-sex-abuse-charge/story?id=16055347 (pending guily verdict)

Or maybe the Red Sox should be punished by Selig?  http://aol.sportingnews.com/mlb/story/2012-03-05/boston-red-sox-sexual-abuse-clubhouse-more-accusations

Edit to add:

I think people are miss understanding what my argument is.  I'm not arguing wether or not the NCAA will do/has done/will be doing anything.  I'm arguing wether or not its their place to do anything - to which I say no, it's not.

The SEC couldn't shut down a bank based on sexual abuse, because the SEC's job is to regulate the securities industry and protect against fraud. But the local police, in their investigation of sexual abuse, could uncover emails, etc., evidencing securities fraud that could then be turned over to the SEC for appropriate action.

Or a more common example: a criminal investigation into fraud, embezzlement, ponzi scheme, etc., uncovers evidence that the suspect underreported income on his tax returns. That evidence is then turned over to the IRS for processing, assessment, and collection. The IRS doesn't assess penalties and interest for the fraud...it assesses penalties and interest for underpayment of taxes.

I misread the original question. I will change the answer to "shareholders." But it's a flimsy analogy in the first place.

...is it time for fall camp yet?

And if the NCAA decides it does have the power to act?

As I've stated before, then I think they've over stepped thier bounds and they'd have some 'splainin to do. 

 I also think they would have to come up with penalties to go along with any possible illegal activity engaged in by anybody who has any affiliation to any team at any university.

At the end of the day, nothing that has come to light has violated any NCAA policy.

Cutting through all the verbiage here I would say that for me the bottom line is that high ranking officials at PSU,  including the head football coach (and maybe others in the football program), apparently covered up multiple felonies committed on football property by an assistant football coach (and then later a retired football coach).  The fact that an AD, a president, a vice president, etc. were all apparently involved in this cover up of a football scandal makes this ripe for an NCAA investigation and if the allegations prove true a stiff penalty.

Edit:  Here are a few highly relevant parts of the letter posted by MoJo.  I don't see how one could conclude from this that the NCAA doesn't believe that PSU potentially violated its rules and regulations:

But, again, what about Penn State's apparent implicitness in Sandusky's behavior? What about Penn State enabling Sandusky to do these things at Penn State? What about Penn State actively hiding this behavior, which again happened there?

An interesting take on the PSU-NCAA situation.  What I find most interesting is the possibility that the NCAA could declare the children abused by Sandusky as "prospective student-athletes."  My guess is that the NCAA will do something like this in order to find a violation of its rules.  It seems to me that would be consistent with the tone of Emmert's letter.