Should Penn State Get the Death Penalty?

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by tk13

Just because everyone else may or may not cheat doesn't mean you should absolve what happened here from punishment. That should have nothing to do with it. You also don't know that this means Penn State will clean up their act. Obviously the child molester that started all of this is gone... but you certainly cannot say the cult-like culture of their program has been fixed.

No, I'm not absolving anyone from punishment. But again, to be clear... people for whatever reason are acting like if Penn State doesn't get the death penalty, they get off scott free. I have no idea where that's coming from. They are getting hammered right now and deservedly so. And they will probably get deserved sanctions from the NCAA and nobody is disputing that they deserve some of those. But to the original point, I've said all along there is an institutional problem in the NCAA that encourages cover-up and compliance has become a laughingstock matter. Even harsh penalties against Penn State aren't going to make other programs comply.

While we don't know if Penn State will comply, the NCAA has the power to build assurances that they will. They can force Penn State to over-comply. To report everything with the understanding that if Penn State continues to break rules, the NCAA will take everything away from them. As for Penn State, you know they're motivated to comply. They can't afford another repetutational hit. They are in massive damage control mode right now. There is no way that massive compliance changes aren't a big part of that, because there is so much to lose if they screw up again.