A little over four years ago, Penn State was in the national spotlight for all of the wrong reasons. Former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was charged with several counts of child abuse, all dating back to his time as an assistant coach with the program. As a result of the scandal, Joe Paterno was fired, and the school has been attempting to rebuild its image ever since.
Well, part of rebuilding that image comes in the form of new stringent hiring policies for coaches at the program. As SB Nation reports, these requirements can make it very difficult during recruiting.
Replacing assistants during recruiting season is commonplace, but school HR policies in the wake of Sandusky, and 2012 changes to Pennsylvania's Child Protective Services Law require any Penn State hire who comes in contact with minors to pass a series of background checks.
Multiple sources outside of Penn State told SB Nation that when recruiting for the '16 class, new PSU assistant coaches were required to travel with established coaches and could not interact with recruits on their own.
If the image problem from that scandal was not a bad enough mark on the school for recruiting, having assistant coaches that are not even allowed to talk to recruits until they pass a long series of background checks has to make the process even more difficult.
Despite this, head coach James Franklin is finally starting to put his own mark on the program. The Nittany Lions have been over .500 for the past three seasons, and while the progress is slow, the potential awaiting them is much greater than it was after the 2011 scandal.
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