When you completed your college application to the Pennsylvania State University, chances are attending a football game or two crossed your mind.

But it's likely that thoughts of being pepper sprayed after a football game didn't exactly dance through your head when you dotted the I's and crossed the T's on your Penn State application.

What's been most endearing in the aftermath of last week's football game has been the university's response to students' concerns.

Discussing the myriad of complaints and addressing concerns from students in some capacity should be a top priority for the officials in charge, and the university should be held accountable for its apparent lack of accountability thus far.

President Graham Spanier has been fantastically mum about the incident, answering questions by way of spokesman or e-mail message. It would seem that this is a time when students need their university president the most and to be ignored does tuition-paying students and parents a disservice.

Penn State University Police Assistant Director Tyrone Parham told The Daily Collegian last week that the university's response could have been much worse; they could have used rubber bullets, nightsticks, riot gear or gas on triumphant students.

Perhaps, had this been the case, those who supported the use of pepper spray would find these additional methods of crowd control to be justifiable as well.

The Ohio National Guard at Kent State University in 1970 certainly did, and they used guns that fired real bullets.

Questions, such as what exactly defines "necessary" force and university accountability are poignant and resonate with many students, some of whom were indeed breaking a law by celebrating on the field after last week's nationally televised football game against Ohio State.

In essence, the university would say it was trying to protect its students as a loving parent would a child.

And it's OK because the university was just doing its job and that's all that counts. Because students were trespassing, they most certainly deserved to be pepper sprayed, right? Police officers should be supported because students had it coming to them, right? Students needed protection from themselves, right? What better way to punish the celebratory and excited college students than by bludgeoning them to a pulp with a few swipes of a nightstick. Maybe we can anticipate that in the future.

"Either way, we are going to be told we did not do our job properly," Parham told the Collegian.

Yes, but sometimes criticism is warranted.