Poachers are going after Penn State football players

Good to see college football get back to business as usual. Good to see the sport's somber mood, brought on by the Penn State scandal, is gone. Good to see that coaches still are capable of unsavory acts.

Note to college football. No matter what happened at Penn State, those Nittany Lions remain Penn State football players.

Just because the Nittanys are free to transfer without penalty doesn't mean common decency should be suspended. And to recruit them without consent, to initiate contact, is rotten. Just because it's within the scope of relaxed NCAA rules makes it no less distasteful.

Some Nittanys will want to leave and will do just that. But there are proper channels. O'Brien even mentioned some coaches who had contacted him – Central Florida's George O'Leary, Iowa's Kirk Ferentz, Syracuse's Doug Marrone – and O'Brien had no ill will toward them.

But gee, can't we let the Nittany Lions gather their ashes in peace? Penn State football has been sufficiently defrocked.

Now some guys guilty only of picking the wrong school are trying to make the best of a bad situation. The least college football could do is leave them alone and let them try to rise.

Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at (405) 760-8080 or at btramel@opubco.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. You can also view his personality page at newsok.com/berrytramel.