Death Penalty Pondering (Not team specific)
Many have stated over the course of the multiple NCAA investigations, and have popped up in the FBI investigations, that an NCAA death penalty is off the table. Why?
I ask because I am thoroughly convinced the only way "cheating" will stop, as many have stated, is to make the penalties so severe that people will stop doing it (or at least think twice). College football is a completely different monster than it was in the SMU 80s, so a death penalty sentence would most likely not have the same reverberating effects as it did then, however the individual schools would suffer harsh enough penalties to set them back, athletically, for years.
College Basketball is only a revenue-generating sport for a handful of teams, so shutting a program down for a few years would probably not hurt much else.
Nobody makes money on college baseball. (Sorry, not getting into any other sports)
40 years ago, if a powerhouse team was given the death penalty, the entire conference suffered a massive/catastrophic loss. Today's college football seems much different. Granted, if Alabama folded, they'd bring Auburn with them, and then the west would have issues, but I feel like the other teams have enough of a fanbase/network share to pick up the slack. Maybe I'm giving it all too much credit. And granted, shutting down an entire athletic program would be incredibly painful to a University, but isn't that the point? If the University is there to educate students (I know, utopia) and they are found breaking student-geared rules to enhance the profitability of the University, should the University as a whole not be punished?
Am I missing something? (more than likely so, but thought it would be an interesting question to pose to the group while we wait on more shoes to drop in other events)
