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The Penn State sexual assault controversy is and always has been a college football story. Recently unsealed testimony, however, claims that a former NFL head coach knew about the situation in the early 1990s, roughly 20 years before it came to light.

Via Stewart Mandel and Bruce Feldman of FOXSports.com, deposition testimony given by former Penn State assistant coach Mike McQueary in an insurance lawsuit relating to the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse cases contends that former Buccaneers coach Greg Schiano had witnessed improper conduct between Sandusky and a young boy.

According to McQueary, former Penn State defensive coordinator Tom Bradley said that, in the early 1990s, Schiano had “come into [Bradley’s] office white as a ghost and said he just saw Jerry doing something to a boy in the shower.”

Schiano, who was hired earlier this year to serve as assistant head coach and defensive coordinator at Ohio State, did not respond to a request for comment from FOX.

In separate unsealed testimony, one of Sandusky’s victims alleged that he told head coach Joe Paterno of an incident of sexual assault in 1976, and that Paterno allegedly said, “I don’t want to hear about any of that kind of stuff, I have a football season to worry about.”

It therefore becomes easy to understand how Schiano (who would have been on the short side of 30 and the high side of the ambition meter in the early 1990s) opted not to upset the applecart by going outside the organization with what he’d seen (if the allegation is true). By the time the situation finally came to light in 2011, it was likely too late for Schiano to chime in without raising questions about why he’d stayed silent for so long.

Regardless, it seems that the situation lingered at Penn State for as long as 35 years, apparently because each and every football season took precedence over doing the right thing. Regardless of the specific facts — ignoring the sexual assault of young boys, retaliating against adult victims of sexual assault who tried to speak up, or turning a blind eye toward various forms of violent crime committed against the local citizenry — it’s now obvious that multiple major college football coaches have taken extreme action (and inaction) to avoid disruptions to The Program.

For decades, it was assumed that the improper influence of college football coaches was limited to efforts to ensure academic eligibility of their players. In recent years, it’s sadly become clear that some will take extreme measures to combat any and all threats to the very thing that gives them the power to brush controversies under the rug: Winning games.

UPDATE 2:28 p.m. ET: Schiano has denied witnessing or knowing about any sexual abuse at Penn State.