Sixteen days ago, Penn State was the center of the college football universe. Now it’s a smoldering crater whose warlords have agreed to pay what could be (but probably won’t wind up being) a $50 million buyout for the coach to go away. But we must give the Nittany Lions this: They had to do it—and that’s the worst indictment of the state of college football.

Penn State was ranked No. 3 in the country on Sept. 27, when it hosted No. 6 Oregon. It was the biggest game of the season, and 111,000 people packed into Beaver Stadium, nearly all of them in white shirts. College GameDay , the flagship ESPN show, had aired live from State College that morning. In overtime, quarterback Drew Allar threw a game-ending interception, which turned out to functionally be an era -ending interception.

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