You guys want punishment? How about being booted out of the game from the first game he started in his career--in the first quarter? How about standing there on the sidelines helplessly, feeling, knowing that had he been on the field, that he might have made this play better or that, that maybe his team wouldn't have been down 21-0 at the half? Watching other people run back the punts and kick returns that he should have, knowing that if he had been out there, had been able to break this way instead of that, knowing he had a better burst of speed, maybe, just maybe, his team would have won.
All the time standing there, knowing how completely, how profoundly, how utterly he had let his teammates down. Whatever they said, however they treated him, tried to reassure him, it was a three point loss, in overtime...and he might have made the difference. He. Let. Them. Down.
Oh yeah. Kansas, two weeks. A spread offense. His actions cost the team an invaluable starting corner. Another nail in the coffin.
Don't tell me he wasn't thinking it. That's agony. That's shame. That's a lesson.
Not to mention that all the time he was standing there, all the plane ride home, all the bus ride back to Ames, and hours spent tossing and turning...he knew that he was going to have to walk into Gene Chizik's office the next day. Alone. And learn to be a man.
That's what punishment is.
Life is lessons to be learned. Not ejected from.