I haven't been able to read as much of the coverage on this as many of you, but I don't yet see this as a death penalty case. This isn't a situation where it's simply impossible to keep wrongdoing from happening again; you just have to find the right 4 people to be the football coach, AD, VP of finance (or whatever schulz was) and president of the university. Would it be that hard to do that? I think some people will say yes, it would, because the culture surrounding the program is such that everyone is afraid to harm the football program. But I'd think you could find four "untouchables."
Compare this case to the case of SMU, where there was a complete lack of control in the sense that no matter what the administration did, rules would continue to be broken. Boosters and fans would continue to give players improper benefits, and there was simply no way to fix that system because it was so culturally ingrained. So, death penalty.
Is this the same problem? A few administrators made a decision to spare a coach the embarrassment of being held responsible for his horrifying exploitation of children (the absurdity of that sentence is intentional). Revolting, yes, but if you replace the administrators you fix the problem, no? The death penalty seems to fit the crime in terms of seriousness but not in terms of logic.