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[QUOTE="Dollar Dog, post: 3250497, member: 7597"]
I come from a Penn State family.  Aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws...lots of friends and neighbors too.  I used to root for PSU football as a kid.  When I went to SU, they all derided it as second-rate to their peerless school, so that fandom ended fast.  Even before that, I had visited State College about 4 times and always thought it had a creepy commune feel to it.  Everyone there thought everything about the place was perfect.

When the Sandusky scandal hit, none of my kin became full-throated apologists.  But nobody condemned PSU either.  At family gatherings, everyone just ignored the issue and basically didn't talk about the football team at all.  After a couple years, as things cooled down and the team got powerful again, people resumed openly rooting for football.  Obviously, I love my family but hate that program with a deep, white-hot passion.

Long story short, my view is that tons of PA kids dream of going to PSU.  Football is almost inseparable from that school's identity.  I think a "death penalty" kind of thing would not hurt main campus because State College will always have cachet to it.  But I think it would seriously damage enrollment at the branches where people have other options.  A big reason why kids go branch is so they can say "they are...Penn State".  Without relevant football, that hook disappears.
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