if its true nothing happens to them this year, then that portion of the decision was nothing more than a money decision. Hard to replace the 12 games for their opponents I guess and that just too much money at stake. I would rather see those schools get automatic W's than play Penn State though.
The easy solution to that would be to have all PSU's games be on the road. I'm sure most of PSU's opponents would be fine with that, minus maybe nonconference opponents who would benefit more from the away game paycheck.