If Penn State needed a metaphorical touchdown to exit the constraints absorbed by the NCAA’s supposedly crippling sanctions, today put the university in the red zone.

At least according to Jay Paterno, who used a football analogy on The Paul Finebaum Show Friday afternoon.

“Senator [Jake] Corman and Treasurer [Rob] McCord have done a great job, they got the ball in the red zone,” he said. “Now we just need to punch it across the goal line.”

Paterno, who’s been a non-wavering supporter of his father throughout the sanctions, essentially reaffirmed the statement his family made earlier today.

“It’s a sign of the NCAA really realizing this is a rush to judgment,” he said.

Though his father’s 111 vacated wins were restored, Paterno said that today’s outcome isn’t about the victories, nor was that ever the primary objective. Paterno, more than anything, wanted the truth.

“It’s about why the NCAA and the Board of Trustees made the decisions they did,” he said. He also mentioned remembering the victims that were harmed in this process as well.

Paterno’s oft-positive and confident voice had a little more pep Friday, as he spoke on Finebaum’s show, which he has frequented multiple times in this past several years.

“Every day we step forward is a positive day for us,” he said. “When you love a place like Penn State as much as we do…you want due process, you want the facts.”

After lambasting the Freeh Report, claiming it was written with a “predetermined judgement”, Paterno drew the subject back to his father’s search for answers.

“All Joe said to us before he died is that we need to get to the truth,” he said. “He’s lived his entire life that way.”

Image: Steve Osborn/Onward State