Duly note that didn't say I was for the death penalty. I don't have an opinion either way on that at this time.
One thing is for a practical purposes, the NCAA has to have harsh penalties. If they don't a future offending university will use that as a marker and say "It would be unfair for us to get harsh punishment, because Penn State didn't."
Barry went to schools that had crappy sports teams, so we shouldn't go by his opinions
One last thing. If you look at a university from afar-- especially if through ESPN et al lenses-- a sports team seems to dominate the university more than it really does. Up close, you see all the other stuff. I live in Seattle and while U of Washinton football is always big, the local newspapers regularly focus on all aspects of the university, including the forestry department and medical schools. So I'm sure Penn State isn't 80% football team, 20 percent academics. In fact, I think it's a pretty good state school and there are a lot of people there who don't really care about the football team.
A neat thing about being a nerd in Seattle, is there's a 24 hour U of Washington channel where they show lectures from all departments. I've watched brain surgery to computer science to abnormal psychology. And intermingled in there they will have a football coach press conference.