Columbus, you knew. The demise of one of the biggest names in college football, James Patrick Tressel, and the descendancy from the kingdom of the high elite.

State College, Pa., you have probably heard more than you can handle over the last fortnight.

But for both, it is undeniable, the past half-generation has been pure Charles Dickens. The best of times. And the worst.

And it doesn't take an endless imagination to see there are enough despised marquis figures, sympathatic Madame Lafarges, and most of the other Dickensian backgrounders to begin to try to understand the middled messes that have turned two of college football's most hallowed addresses into maelstroms of uncertainty.

L'Affaire Ohio State -- the five New Testament antiheroes who sold their hard-earned and sacred mementos of their Buckeyes success for a good bit more than 30 pieces of silver.

A finger-pointing montage of faceless critics from Other Places who were only too happy to revel in the Buckeyes' running afoul of the NCAA's keystone kops enforcement squad. A downgrading of a basically good, decent man who respected conference and nationwide, who made one critical mistake -- not taking the official records of the Terrelle Pryor Five's transgressions and walking them down the second floor hallway at St. John Arena to the university's impressively spacious compliance office offering an accompany series of mea culpas and returning to some form of normalcy.

The Penn State conundrum breaks hearts and angers blue and white loyalists from Portland to Portland and all points in between. How could Jerry Sandusky, once being groomed as a very likely successor to one of sport's all-time sports icons, Joe Paterno, to shift from Dickens to Dante for just a sec, descend from that lofty perch to the Seventh Circle?

As someone who has covered over 35 Penn State games and one who had the then-pleasureable experience of talking with Sandusky in post-game settings in which his defense choked off another superpower (Notre Dame, highly-ranked Pitt teams, etc.), the Jerry Sandusky I knew was a classic Middle American from one of the truly nicest places to grow up, Washington, PA, not far from one of the three places I spent my childhood. All-American kid, great football player for "Wash High," then onto be part of a coachly torch-passing from venerable Rip Engle to Paterno at Penn State.

That Jerry Sandusky stands in chilling contrast with the shadowy, self-defending voice heard responding to Bob Costas' cable TV interview a couple of days back.

"Are you a pedophile?"

"N-n-nooooo..."

How many different ways has this sordid tale been told, one that took down a true sports legend, his athletic director (Tim Curley, who had played for JoePa a generation ago, but stood accused of covering up Sandusky's alleged transgressions), and the university's nationally-respected president, Graham Spanier???

N-n-nooooo, indeed. "Nobody could write a script this bad," a crestfallen former Nittany Lion, Matt Millen, told ESPN Radio's Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic Monday. Previously interviewed, the former Lion All-America and all-pro standout broke down while beholding the implosion surrounding his beloved school.

He wasn't alone.

Pedophilia. Suddenly, the Reggie Bush cash dash, the Maurice Clarett and Pryor Five's mischief seemed like little more than calls to the principal's office.

The accusatory elitists, who love seeing beloved icons -- be they sports, religious (read any stories about priests' misdeeds in the last 15 years???) Today's culture demands scrawling graffiti all across the American Dream, ripping images to threads. Some Ivy League and snotty journalism school ghouls who probably haven't seen the inside of any religious building in their adult years, relish their chances to hack away.

You didn't need an active imagination to hear the uproar from the Great White Way through the corporate canyons to the ivory towers as the upstart institutions begin to challenge the elitists' hoity-toity superiority through winning the Might-makes right side of the Socratic battle and competing more and more successfully for a bigger piece of the academic pie.

But the one part of what highly-respected ESPN broadcaster Mike Tirico called "Parallel Universes" might be the Tressel faux pas in handling his players' misdeeds alongside Paterno, whose name is being dutifully dragged through mudbowls from Manhattan to Manhattan Beach.

What did he know? What indeed WAS the role of former Paterno late '90s quarterback Mike McQueary, who likely unjustly has been a target of death threats that feed the more extreme media elements who characterize a town one respected national survey called one of the top three most liveable places in the country for three straight years not long ago.

And of course, why didn't Paterno go directly to both university hierarchy and legal authority when confronted with early reports of Sandusky's misbehavior?

After facing 40 counts of sexual misconduct with at least eight youngsters who'd only wanted to steer their lives on course at his "Second Mile" Mission, what becomes of the now bitterly ironic title of then-Good Guy Sandusky's biography -- "Touched"?

So many questions, so few answers...

The disappearance of Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricer, who in 2005 was allegedly pursuing the case, with his computer found in the Susquehanna River near Lewisburg and has never been heard from since -- the choices are grim: Suicide, Homicide, permanent disappearance.

It is one part heartbreak, one part anger-inducing, one part continuing series. But Matt Millen is right. No one could write this bad a story. Suddenly, all that's left in Columbus is to await the fumbling Indy suits' final summation of Ohio State's longterm football program fate.

In State College, it will be a much deeper, much more introspective ordeal that may go on for years.

Charles Dickens? You might have trouble getting Stephen King or Lawrence Sanders to touch it.