Miami Hurricanes Football: Can the NCAA Afford to Give Miami the Death Penalty?

The University of Miami football program is one of the most popular and successful programs in the history of college football, and even in the midst of recent allegations of severe rule violations, can the NCAA really afford to give the death penalty to one of its perennial Division 1 powerhouses?

The death penalty is a popular term used to describe the harshest punishment the NCAA can levy on a school, which is banning a school from a particular sport(s) for at least one season.

The NCAA has been investigating Miami for the past five months due to the relationship between the school and booster Nevin Shapiro.

It is alleged that Shapiro has supplied at least 72 Miami players with cars, money, girl, and other things from 2002 to 2010, according to Yahoo! Sports.

Miami is one of the most storied football programs in America, and they are normally a widely talked about and watched team.

But does the NCAA have the courage to impose a ban of a year or more on Miami Hurricanes football? Are they too soft?

The NCAA hasn't given the "death penalty" to a football program since the 1980s when it banned Southern Methodist University (SMU) from playing football in 1987 and 1988.

The death penalty destroyed SMU football, and is was completely unable to recover. You could argue that SMU's punishment helped bring down the Southwestern Conference too.

If Miami was banned from football competition, not only would the school suffer financially, but their opponents would suffer financially from lost revenue from gameday and from television contracts.

Whenever Miami rolls onto campus, it's a big deal and not having that would hurt the ACC and SEC teams Miami normally plays each season.

Giving Miami the death penalty would also hurt college football in southern Florida, which is where many of the best high school athletes play.

No student-athlete will want to go to Miami when the school's ban from football (if it happens) is lifted. They will go to in-state rivals Florida or Florida State instead.

Will Miami get the death penalty when the dust settles and the allegations are further investigated? Probably not.

The NCAA knows how devastating the death penalty can be. Back in 2002, then University of Florida President John Lombardi spoke about what college football learned from SMU's punishment:

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"SMU taught the committee that the death penalty is too much like the nuclear bomb," said Lombardi via the Business Insider. "It's like what happened after we dropped the bomb in World War II.

The results were so catastrophic that now we'll do anything to avoid dropping another one."

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There are many different ways the NCAA can punish Miami football without catastrophically hurting the program for the long term future.

1) Take away scholarships.

2) Take away wins from seasons in which players were found to be ineligible participated in (this could include Miami's 2001 National Championship).

3) Impose a bowl game ban for four to seven years.

Nevin Shapiro is in currently in jail for his role in a $930 million ponzi scheme, so his allegations may not seem credible to some.

However, in an ESPN.com video and article by Pat Forde, Shapiro says he has over 1,000 pictures and 10 years of bank statements, among other things, of evidence.

So it seems Shapiro's allegations have some weight, but only time will tell.

Recent rules violations at Ohio State University and the University of Southern California resulted in wins not counting and trophies, such as former USC running back Reggie Bush's 2005 Heisman Award being relinquished.

However, none of the violations at the two aforementioned schools is close to the severity of the ones Miami is currently dealing with.

Miami is too big of a football program for the NCAA to give the death penalty to, and the financial implications of the decision to give the death penalty to the University would be massive as well.

The NCAA won't likely give the school the ultimate athletics punishment, but there's no question that "The U" is going to pay for their violations for many years.

The NCAA must punish Miami and any of its employees who took part or had knowledge of the alleged violations, but to ruin the football program with the death penalty isn't fair or good for the health of college football.

Nicholas Goss is a Featured Columnist at Bleacher Report, follow him on Twitter for up to the minute sports news. Follow @NicholasGoss35