It’s the in-story in the offseason. ESPN’s Outside the Lines story on Penn State‘s off-the-field issues. I was only able to get around to watching it this evening (I really love having a DVR). There have been enough people e-mailing me about it that I will write something.

There was nothing too earth-shattering in it. That Penn State has had a lot of criminal charges filed against the players in the past several years is not a revelation. This sort of report has been building as it has carried on each year. Suggesting something in the team culture, rather than just the “bad apple” argument.

Joe Paterno’s insistence on denying everything shouldn’t have been a surprise. Even his overall cantankerousness. It’s Joe Paterno. Big shock that he’s old and cranky when the media isn’t asking the questions he wants. I had a sense that if Steve Delsohn — the reporter — held up a blue paint sample and asked him what he thought of this shade of blue, Paterno would have denied that it was actually blue by the end

Remember what I wrote last week about Iowa’s problems? Well, here’s the key bit.

More than that, though, it also becomes an issue of how the fans face such things. Do they look at it solely in what it means in wins and losses? Do they circle the wagons and descend into lunatic-fringe paranoia – seeing conspiracies and attempts to bring down their beloved program at every turn? Do they demand accountability from the program and their school?

That’s what Penn State fans have to address. Is it all just an ESPN hit piece? Numbers without context? Really? The PSU Football team has been a top-510 resident of the Fulmer Cup the past two years. What does that say?

Programs like Penn State, Notre Dame and Michigan love to talk about a special way of doing things and all that tripe in the past. Their fans eat it up and parrot it. Really, what they want is to win. Period. When convenient they will rationalize it with “everybody does it” themes to minimize things. They will accuse all others of being jealous and just trying to bring them down.

It doesn’t go both ways no matter how hard they try. Either accept that the old ways are long gone and the program is just like every other program out there. With periods of bad behavior and problems. Or mean it when you claim the program is different. Demand and act accordingly when the bad crap happens.