This has been a trying week for the Big Ten Conference. Thursday and Friday, the Big Ten had to face up to the fact that one-third of the conference football teams are on probation with Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan and Nebraska all dealing with NCAA sanctions of one form or another.

And the man who answers those questions is the commissioner of the Big Ten, Jim Delany, who said in his annual Q & A that the NCAA and Big Ten had the moral authority to penalize Penn State.

He went on to say, "I don't really care if this is a precedent or if they (the NCAA) had jurisdiction."

Delany became rather emotional as he recounted the past few months' affect on Penn State and his conference. And he went on to say the NCAA penalties against Penn State did not necessarily set a precedent.

He called the Sandusky case "unique."

Also having to face the press in Chicago were three Penn State football players. Penn State did a 360 on this, as they had announced they would have no players at the shindig in Chicago.

The one player who was substituted for was linebacker Michael Mauti. He took the place of Silas Redd, a sought-after running back who is reportedly visiting Southern Cal this weekend.

On the other side of the coin, Wisconsin Coach Bret Bielema said he has no plans to recruit the players at Penn State. Bielema said he decided against that because it would go against what he called a Big Ten brotherhood.

That, however, has not deterred the likes of Ohio State Coach Urban Meyer and Purdue Coach Danny Hope. They apparently are interested, along with Illinois coaches who have been on the Penn State campus this week.

Iowa's Kirk Ferentz has called Bill O'Brien at Penn State and said if the Hawks get into the recruiting business with players who were finalists on their list, that he would go through the regular Big Ten and NCAA recruiting rules.

For O'Brien, he announced that the 30-player core of the Penn State team, in his mind, is intact. And O'Brien had a comment that sums up his attitude like this before the Big Ten press: "I came from a league (the NFL) where there are 53 players on the roster, eight practice squad players and 45 on the active roster, 21 on offense, 21 on defense and three specialists.

"So I'm pretty well aware of how to handle a roster of 65 players. So we have plans in place and I don't think that that's as bad as everybody says it is."

My comment would be, we'll see you in four years after the full force of the NCAA sanctions have taken hold.

DON'T FORGET the 14th annual Greater Cedar Rapids Open golf tournament is being held again at Hunters Ridge this weekend with three rounds and a $20,000 first prize that will be determined Sunday afternoon. In this year's field there is Marc Gladson, a Wake Forest grad and the son of Larry Gladson, the pro at Elmcrest, plus last's year defending champion, Brock Mulder, of Dallas, a Waterloo native.

These champions put on a great show and all of the funds go to charity and the attendance is free.

That will get you ready for Monday's Zach Johnson event, the second annual affair that will bring Zach and his top pro friends back to dear old Elmcrest.

(Bob Brooks is sports director at KMRY and has been one of the leading voices of college and prep sports in Eastern Iowa for more than 65 years. He is a 10-time winner of the Iowa Sportscaster of the Year Award, and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend, Indiana in 2004. His sports reports can be heard weekday afternoons at 4:30 and 5:30, and Saturdays at 6:40 for the Hawkeye football wrap-up.)