The recent penalties handed down to Penn State will have a huge impact on the upcoming Big Ten season.  Penn State was expected to be a competitive team before this disaster struck, and now it will most likely not be that way for quite a while.

A number of players are expected to transfer at no penalty, and a number of them could potentially stay in the Big Ten.  The real loser in this situation besides the victims of child abuse is the Big Ten Conference.

Wisconsin can punch their ticket to the Big Ten Championship game with Penn State and Ohio State both being ineligible for post season play.  Wisconsin only has to beat out Illinois, Indiana, and Purdue to lock themselves into the Championship game.

Those three teams were not expected to be very good anyway, which makes this season even that much more boring for the Big Ten on the Leaders Division side.  The Legends Division should be exciting, but that won’t make up for the lost cause on the other side.

However, with Ohio State and Penn State both under the microscope it could generate short term media attention to head their direction to see how they attempt to overcome the recent situations.  This could potentially be very beneficial to the Big Ten.

The winners in this situation are the other schools in the Big Ten.  They now have a chance to not only swoop in and take current players off the Penn State roster, but for the next four or five seasons they are going to have their chance to get their hands on a number of recruits that will now be looking elsewhere.

There won’t be any special recruiting tools needed to lure a player away from Penn State.  All a coach has to attack is the chance to play in a bowl game and the lack of exposure Penn State will get due to the decline in the quality of their football and the poor reputation that has now been established.

Time will tell how if the penalties will be worse than the death penalty for Penn State.  However, the immediate impact will gear more towards the Big Ten and how the other football programs will be able to take advantage of the punishments handed down to Penn State.