They might need to take this statue down.

I remember reading, watching all the info I could this past year (thanks to ESPN’s “30 for 30″) on SMU’s death penalty situation. With a program to actually pay their student-athletes, that led to the football team rising to the top of the college ranks.

Obviously in college sports, paying the athletes is against the rules. Plus, SMU did this in hopes of taking their program to the top. That’s what happened. And when they got caught, the rightful punishment was the death penalty.

But with Penn State, the cry for a death penalty doesn’t make sense. At least the way I see it, it’s two totally different situations. What happened at SMU was done to gain an advantage on the football field. So the proper punishment was to take away football. But what happened at Penn State had nothing to do with what went on the football field, so why should we take away that?

The rightful punishment is to send all the culprits to jail and try to erase anything that relates to this tragedy. The school’s already remodeling the showers where the victims were attacked. There’s talk about eliminating the statue of Paterno. That makes a lot more sense than killing the entire football program.

Why should the football players be punished for something they didn’t do? What about the local community and shops that will be hurt by not having football? This overreaction isn’t going to help anything.

With SMU, those who were involved were punished. Let’s hope the NCAA does the same here with Penn State. Punish those who were involved, but don’t punish the athletes and program that had nothing to do with it.

The death penalty killed SMU and they have yet to recover from it. Don’t do that to Penn State football. They don’t deserve it.