There is no way they get the Death Penalty.
College football is now all about making millions and millions. No way does the Big 10 allow one of their prized money makers go down without a fight. Losing Penn State is incredibly bad for the Big 10 conference. Michigan, Ohio State...all of them need Penn State. At the end of the season when it comes time to select the four to play for a title, Michigan and Ohio State don't want a committee looking over their watered down schedule and taking the one-loss SEC school.
The Death Penalty was so long ago. Anytime a program gets in trouble it's so much fun to just toss that phrase out there. It's not practical punishment in this day and age. The NCAA is not out to execute programs anymore. It happened one time to one program who at the time was already on probation AND keeping books. Even at Miami and Penn State, two programs who currently aren't on probation, things are still hidden. There are some things that happened at Penn State that we'll never know about. But damn near everything was discovered at SMU because they ran their renegade program like a legitimate business.
Id be stunned if the NCAA handed Penn State the death penalty.