WRAL Sports Fan

The NCAA "death penalty" is dead

By Joe Ovies
Aug 18, 2011

When Ohio State found themselves in a heap of trouble over Terelle Pryor and Jim Tressel, pundits and fans alike openly discussed the death penalty. The same cries for triggering the NCAA nuclear option on North Carolina occurred when the Tar Heels received their Notice of Allegations in June. 

After Yahoo! Sports exposed an out of control booster lavishing Miami Hurricanes players, everyone is ready to drop the death penalty on them as well. 

But it won't happen. Partly because Miami's infractions are even at the level of previous scandals in Coral Gables and partly because the NCAA basically said it won't use the option again.

The NCAA said as much in ESPN's "30 for 30" documentary about Southern Methodist University, which was the last football program to have a season canceled. That attitude was repeated when the NCAA's vice president for enforcement, Julie Roe Lach, spoke to the New York Times regarding possible penalties for Miami.

The death penalty has been shelved and will likely never been used again. The ramifications are too great. It not only puts not just the program receiving the penalty in jeopardy, but the conferences themselves. Considering the amount of money invested into college football, through television contracts and facilities, it's too big to fail.

That's not to say Miami or any other school that showed up in the headlines for the wrong reasons this year can't be heavily sanctioned. The precedent will be Southern Cal's punishment stemming from the Reggie Bush scandal. The NCAA stripped the Trojans of  30 scholarships and issued a two-year postseason ban.

But this is the NCAA we're talking about. The extent of Miami's alleged misdeeds, involving multiple players and assistant coaches, is greater than what happened at USC. However, the NCAA has never really stuck with precedent thanks to a lack of concrete punishment guidelines and a rotating cast of Committee on Infractions members.