The NCAA admittedly had the death penalty as an option for Penn St. While listening to NCAA President Mark Emmert's explanation of their decision not to drop the DP bomb, it wasn’t fully disclosed, but was implied they we’re holding it up as leverage to get a much more thoughtful sanction in place. They understood from experience, as with SMU, how there can be serious “long term collateral damage" to many innocent people, schools, and even conferences, connected, and not connected to the football program. Yes, on a micro scale, community businesses, do benefit from the many traveling fans. In other words, they feed their children a little better on football weekends. However, the NCAA's real concerned surfaced when Emmert mentioned that the last death penalty, pretty much broke up the SWC, causing a domino effect we all are still dealing with today. That my fellow blue field supporters, is very much a top priority in our business, as we became another domino in this new game we could call "Realignment Dominoes".
Let me show you how the SMU death penalty affected us indirectly;

The Southwest Conference (SWC) before the death penalty

Arkansas, Baylor, Houston, Rice, SMU, TCU, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech

1987 - SMU gets the Death Penalty

1990 - Arkansas>(SEC), 1994 - Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Baylor>(The Big 12), SMU, TCU, Rice>(WAC), Houston> (Conf, USA), (1996 the SWC cease to exist)

It was all quite on the western front for more than a decade, until agitation, or jealousy began in the Big 12 towards Texas, and their one trick pony show ($).........

....and they were off again, a second round of Realignment Dominoes

Nebraska>BIG, Boise St>MWC, Colorado, Utah>PAC, TCU>Big East, BYU >(Ind.) Pitt, Syracuse>ACC Mizzou, Tech A&M>SEC, WVU, TCU>Big 12, Boise St>Big East.

The dust has not even come closed to settling either. There is so much talk going on right now, from every corner of the CFB world about movement, I sometimes feel like were in a raft paddling over to a big new ship, but there is a hurricane alert. The Penn St's scandal, has just added more possible headwinds to our journey, because if they end up looking any worse than they do now, the BIG may oust them, the NCAA may put more sanctions on them, and all hell will break loose again. A mad scramble to fill the vacancy in one of the richest conferences will ensue, causing dominoes to fall elsewhere.

That is why, even if we don’t want to discuss the actual sensitive reasoning behind the punishment, we do want to discuss, and keep an eye on how the punishment ends up, and which direction, if any the dominoes will continue to fall. As highlighted, you can see that we were very much, good or bad, choice or no choice, involved, & affected by the last death penalty handed out by the NCAA. How will the third round of Realignment Dominoes, affect or involve us, if there is one?