Should Penn State Football Get an SMU Style Death Penalty Post Joe Paterno in the Wake of the Jerry Sandusky Scandal?

With the expected results of the Penn State report on the internal workings that allowed the Jerry Sandusky scandal expected to be released later today, people are beginning to clamor louder for an SMU style death penalty. If the results of the report are half as bad as people expect them to be, the death penalty would be a slap on the wrist compared to what was allowed to go on at Penn State.

That being said, regardless of what the report has to say, no one is ever going to know what really happened. If the coverups and miss information are any indication, this scandal goes far deeper than anyone cares to admit. The questions many have had since news broke about the incident was, "Why was this allowed to go on? How could no one involved in that program have known nothing?" The answers, sadly, from all indications are that people did know what was going on, and they were motivated by greed and selfishness.

Monetarily, Penn State football made around $70 million a season, number one in the Big 10, which after expenses turned into a profit of around $50 million. Penn State seemed unwilling to lose that additional $50 million in income, which would more than likely take a great hit, even if they had been straight up about the Jerry Sandusky issues from the beginning. Penn State still would have been involved in one of the worst public relations scandals of all time.

As we all unfortunately know, that is not the case, and not what happened.

Another question that has been floating around lately is what to do next. With the passing of Joe Paterno, and the conviction of Jerry Sandusky who will spend the rest of his life in jail, people are seemingly without people to blame. This will most likely change in the next few hours with the publication of the Louis Freeh report.

Editorial Time

If the results of the report end up being what they are expected to be, the only repercussion is for Penn State football to suffer an SMU style death penalty, and any member of Penn State University that is proven to be involved in the cover up to serve time in jail as well. If the cover up is proven to be pervasive in the entire athletic department, perhaps a complete death penalty to Penn State Athletics is in order.

I understand that that is not at all fair to the student athletes, especially considering the vast majority of them had no idea what is going on, especially players not involved in the football program, but given the situation there seems to be no other option.

The death penalty for the football program is the minimum of what should happen. Penn State fans, who are truly the ones being, for lack of a better word, screwed by the whole situation should understand. They must view it as a chance to completely clear the air, rid themselves completely of everyone involved in this situation and start over.

What do you think? Is the death penalty to harsh, or not harsh enough?