It looks like the Southern Methodist University football team of 1987 will forever be the only sports program to receive the death penalty from the NCAA.

With Baylor’s men’s basketball team receiving only a five-year probation and the loss of its upcoming non-conference season from the NCAA last week, it’s hard to think any athletic scandal will ever again justify the ultimate sanction.

If the NCAA were serious about doling out another death penalty, this was the time to do it.

Baylor men’s basketball is already in the Big 12 cellar, the team’s revenue isn’t crucial to the University, and the events that occurred in Waco, Texas, certainly warranted the harshest possible punishment.

In 2003, former Baylor basketball player Patrick Dennehy was murdered by former teammate Carlton Dotson, who received a 35-year prison sentence after confessing to the crime.

Once an investigation began, it was discovered that former Baylor head coach Dave Bliss paid up to $40,000 in tuition for Dennehy and another player.

In an attempt to his wrongdoing, Bliss told his players to lie to investigators and say Dennehy’s money came from selling drugs.

The mess got so out of hand that officials at Baylor told reporters last week that they considered self-imposing the death penalty.

Any school that is found to have two major NCAA violations cases within a five-year period gets automatic death penalty consideration, and Gene Marsh, chairman of the Division I Committee on Infractions, thought about handing out the sentence.

Baylor was considered a repeat offender, as its tennis program received punishment in 2000 for violating NCAA rules.

Ultimately, though, the committee backed off because of Baylor’s cooperation throughout the process.

“We considered this to be a death penalty case,” Marsh told reporters. “We were there, and then we took a step back.”

To be fair, Baylor handled the situation well, but it seems likely the NCAA decided to ease up on Baylor because, when it made an example out of SMU football, the program never recovered from the punishment.

In the SMU case, the death penalty was issued because school officials had shown a blatant disregard for the rules and gained a competitive advantage in the process.

The NCAA barred SMU’s football team from playing its 1987 season after 21 players allegedly received a total of $61,000 in cash payments from boosters. The University then decided to cancel its 1988 season as well.

The SMU football team was left in ruins, as it went from a competitive team in the Southwest Conference to a doormat in the Western Athletic Conference. Next season, SMU enters Conference USA.

Since the school started fielding a football team again, arguably its greatest accomplishment is defeating a Terry Allen-coached Kansas team in 2000. Needless to say, the Mustangs haven’t been to a bowl game since their football fatality.

SMU surely lost money and publicity by not having a football team — which is a big deal in Texas. The NCAA certainly had to think twice before doing the same kind of harm to a Big 12 school.

The NCAA also had the opportunity to give the death penalty to Alabama’s football team in 2002 when it discovered, among other things, that boosters gave two recruits five-figure payments, but settled for a two-year bowl ban.

Other close calls were in 1994 when Washington and Ole Miss each received two-year bowl bans for similar violations.

Though Baylor’s penalty didn’t include any post-season bans, it was far worse than any of the above reprimands, especially because it was added onto Baylor’s already self-imposed three year probation.

It’s obvious this is the worst type of punishment we will see the NCAA hand out from now on.

The NCAA’s decision to avoid imposing the death penalty sets the precedent that something worse than a murder and attempted cover-up of wrongdoings is required to get the ax.

It’s hard to imagine what that might be.