Your College Football Weekend Primer: The Premature End of Penn State's Sanctions

With postseason eligibility restored and a full complement of scholarships available, expect James Franklin to return Penn State to prominence. But is it too soon after one of the worst scandals in American sports history?

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Well, that didn't take long.

In the summer of 2012, following the Jerry Sandusky scandal and cover up, Penn State's football program was banned from postseason play, including the Big Ten Championship Game, until 2017, and was hit with crippling scholarship restrictions that would allow it to only carry 65 scholarship players (20 less than other programs) and offer 15 players scholarships each recruiting cycle (10 less than other programs), also until 2017.

Things seemed ugly, and it was estimated by many that the Penn State football team wouldn't be fully stocked with scholarship athletes until the mid-2020s.

Well, forget about all that, because just over two years later, all of it is out the window.

The NCAA, which appeared to "drop the hammer" on Penn State in July of 2012 for enabling and failing to report a child rapist, has decided that the Nittany Lions have done their penance, whatever that may be (perhaps not enabling another case of systematic child rape in the last 26 months?), and will be allowed to participate in the postseason THIS YEAR.

Furthermore, scholarships will be fully restored to 25 available offers per season and 85 total by the start of next season. Way to go NCAA, you effectively penalized the worst scandal in the history of college, if not all American sports by making Penn State skip the Gator and Buffalo Wild Wings Bowls, and by forcing a pair of coaching upgrades.

Long and Suite Preview: The SEC

A Vanderbilt player is the pic on our SEC preview??? Believe the hype with Jordan Matthews.

By Joe Parello  @HerewegoJoe

The SEC has long been one of college football's best conferences, but the BCS era will forever be remembered as the time it became THE dominant conference.

Behind a mini-Florida dynasty and a full-blown Alabama dynasty, the SEC has won the last seven BCS National Championships, and nine out of the 15 BCS titles all time (That doesn't even count how the 2005 Auburn Tigers went undefeated and weren't given a chance to play for a title).

With the end of the BCS upon us, there are plenty of SEC teams with a chance to bring the conference its 10th BCS crown. But, with Nick Saban returning a ton of talent at Alabama, we could see the first back-to-back-to-back national champions in the poll era.