Ouch. It’s not looking good for Reggie Bush. (Hat tip: BK.)
My suggestion to Pete Carroll & co.: win a national championship this year, without “The President.” No matter what happens with this investigation, we can be sure that no one will be able to take that one away. It starts (well, continues) Saturday against Nebraska. BEAT THE CORNHUSKERS!!!
P.S. Over at ND Nation, they’re talking about “failure to exert proper institutional control” — which would turn this from a Reggie Bush problem into a USC problem — being demonstrated by this passage:
Sources told Yahoo! Sports that representatives of New Era were allowed into the USC locker room during the 2005 season. Ornstein and other agents frequented the USC sidelines during several games and numerous practices that season, according to published reports.
Also, [USC RB coach Todd] McNair allegedly knew of Bush’s involvement with the New Era venture before last season’s national championship game against Texas, according to two sources.
If this ends up putting an asterisk next to the greatest game in college football history, I’m going to be very annoyed.
P.P.S. Yahoo! Sports columnist Dan Wetzel says the NCAA BCS should make USC forfeit its 2004-05 national championship. (Hat tip: Andrew, who is unconvinced.) Well, I don’t care what the NCAA does, I’m keeping my damn banner.
It’s so… pretty! Sniff, sniff.
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Categories: USC, College Football
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September 14th, 2006 at 10:34:56 pm
DAMN.
September 14th, 2006 at 11:16:57 pm
All in all, this is some interesting — and to some extent, damning — information coming out of the Yahoo investigation. I thought Dan Wetzel’s commentary piece was totally off-base and hyperventilative and unrealistic: What’s the “message” the NCAA is sending — that you’ll be severely punished for things largely out of your control unless you become a Bigger Brother than the Bush Administration as alleged by its lefty foes?!? In any case, I am hesitant to truly worry about this investigation, and I actually fully support getting all the facts on the table out in the open so we can have a real debate. Even if the NCAA moves to punish USC in the worst form it can, with scholarship sanctions, probation, and stripping the ‘04 title and Trophy, it can’t change the historical truth that nothing alleged against Bush or USC materially affected or changed the fact that USC was the #1 team in 2004. Go ahead, strip USC, make Auburn the new “champion” — go ahead and see how empty that will be to most college football fans. Much more likely is, this case will force the NCAA to get serious about what it can — and cannot — control. See this ESPN story for another good example.
September 15th, 2006 at 12:08:42 am
Yeah it would be empty for Auburn fans…as empty as that 2003 championship on that banner. What the hell do a bunch of jack ass sports writers with their west coast bias know anyway? Remember USC’s name is only etched ONE time on that BCS trophy. The spot next to 2003 on that crystal football belongs to LSU.
September 15th, 2006 at 12:16:44 am
Careful Andrew, the last time a west coast school started to gain dominance in the last 20 years the NCAA slammed them with sanctions that had to do with the behavior or an individual player too.
September 15th, 2006 at 12:17:02 am
LSU was a deserving national champion in 2003 and I will not speak ill of them. USC was also a deserving national champion in 2003. And — hey! — they both won national championships! How convenient! Why are we talking about this?
September 15th, 2006 at 12:19:22 am
Jesus, David if it’s not the referees, it’s the NCAA.
September 15th, 2006 at 2:48:12 am
Whatever Bill, you clearly have no clue what you are talking about.
September 15th, 2006 at 8:37:32 am
USC fans are SO hypocritical! If this was another prominent program, you guys would roast them alive. But, since this is USC, and even with damning evidence (to quote Andrew’s own words) the mood of this blog is merely speculative. BS! They are guilty! The title should be snatched and the program punished.
September 15th, 2006 at 9:09:27 am
Andrew–How can you say that this situation was “largely out of the control” of USC, considering the reports (assuming they’re accurate) that New Era reps were on the USC sidelines and locker room?
I understand your point that stripping the title does not change the fact that USC was athletically the deserving champion of the 2004-05 season—and I understand your point that this violation did not enhance the play of the 2004-05 Trojans. Nonetheless, the alleged violation is serious—and, I might add, quite stupid—and undermines the NCAA’s foundational mission to support STUDENT-athletes, as opposed to amateur athletes. The NCAA should come down hard if these allegations pan-out.
As for the BCS, I don’t know. If these violations didn’t enhance USC’s play, I don’t see why the championship needs to go. But in the long run, the NCAA sanctions would be far more substantial anyway.
September 15th, 2006 at 10:34:07 am
Having had the priviledge of being a player (a backup) on a fairly well-known Div I-A football team, I can say that the coaches, administrators, etc…, pretty much know EVERYTHING that’s going on with the players.
And let me tell you, the things that occur and never make it to the spotlight would make quite an interesting story.
September 15th, 2006 at 1:33:51 pm
USC fans are SO hypocritical! If this was another prominent program, you guys would roast them alive.
I could just as easily turn this on its head and say, “Notre Dame fans are SO hypocritical! If this was happening to Notre Dame, you guys would give them every benefit of the doubt, claim it was just an isolated incident about which the university had no knowledge, and claim a vast media conspiracy to bring down the Irish in the midst of their return to glory. But because it’s USC, you roast them alive.”
Of course, such generalizations are unfair in both cases. Individual fans would react differently. I, for one, would NOT “roast them alive” if it was another program, and I certainly wouldn’t gloat and dance on the program’s grave as many Domers are doing right now, because I wound find the whole ordeal be genuinely sad. For example, if you told me tomorrow that Vince Young was going to be declared ineligible for the 2005 season and Texas was going to have to forfeit its games, I would say that’s retarded; unless VY was taking steroids or something, he was the best player on the field at the Rose Bowl, he led Texas to a well-deserved championship, and you can’t retroactively change that historical fact. And, even if I felt the sanctions were justified, I would still be very sad about them, not happy — even if they resulted in USC winning an unearned “championship” — because having great games and great seasons retroactively nullified due to off-the-field shenanigans is the last thing any true football fan should want, regardless of the identities of the teams involved.
September 15th, 2006 at 1:43:14 pm
Yeah it would be empty for Auburn fans…as empty as that 2003 championship on that banner. What the hell do a bunch of jack ass sports writers with their west coast bias know anyway? Remember USC’s name is only etched ONE time on that BCS trophy. The spot next to 2003 on that crystal football belongs to LSU.
You don’t hear much about the West Coast bias in sports nowadays…wonder why?
Justin, as a Trojan, I’m more than happy to share with LSU the co-champion title. It takes nothing away from either team’s acheivements to say that there were two teams that demonstrated championship-calibur performances in 2003 and two separate institutions, each with the well-established and recognized privelage to name a national champion, disagreed on #1 vs. #2. Why is it so hard for some people to share? If Auburn had won the AP vote at the end of 2004, I’d call them champs, too…
September 15th, 2006 at 2:30:52 pm
Ok, so here is a question. What possible good does it do to punish a school for the actions of an individual player that:
1) Had no impact on his performance on the field
2) Was not known to the coaching staff/administration
September 15th, 2006 at 2:41:23 pm
Um, deterrence? Just deserts for unfair advantages?
Also, it seems that you didn’t read the Yahoo report…it seems that some of this was far from “unknown.”
http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/news;_ylt=AhdPG529hV62HG5BdY6RPuI5nYcB?slug=dw-bush_usc&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
September 15th, 2006 at 3:38:41 pm
David, I agree that it wouldn’t do any good to punish a school given your two conditions, but if the program as a whole knew about it, then it deserves to be punished. It’s not like universities are unaware of some esoteric nobody-has-time-to-read-this code. NCAA regulations are drilled into everyone, thus making their violation a serious offense.
I think it would be unfair to retroactively take USC’s championship away, but I think there could be a strong case for sanctions in the future. I’m a Domer (obviously), but, going along with Brendan here, I hate to see this happen to any team because I like college football so much as a whole.
September 15th, 2006 at 4:44:22 pm
Um, deterrence? Just deserts for unfair advantages?
How does punishing the institution for something it had no control over and/or was unaware of deter anything?
And as I said above, if there was no impact on an athletes on field performance how does that count as unfair advantage? How would a player recieving a gift from an alumni/booster/agent create a situation where said athelte was better on the field?
And how does it help when the athlete themself gets off scott free and the program is punished? You aren’t punishing the one who broke the rule, no you are dissproportionately punishing people who didn’t break any rules.
If you punish USC now do you know what that does to Reggie Bush? Nothing. He still has his million dollar NFL contract. Punishing the program unless it was aware and did nothing is patently ridiculous when done retroactively like this.
But then, I don’t expect teams from the West Coast to be treated anywhere near fairly. We will invariably be punished much more stringently for violations than our non-West-Coast bretheren. Just as the Huskies and Auburn. In one case players recieved gifts from boosters and the NCAA placed heavy sanctions on the school despite the fact that there was no evidence the school/coaches were aware of it or involved, and that the players in question had graduated/left. Then you look at Auburn who had coaches involved in a scandal around the same time and recieved less sanctions. Yeah, right, its all about ‘deterrence’ and unfair advantages.
September 15th, 2006 at 9:16:36 pm
Colin Cowherd had a great segment on this topic this morning. More or less, he said this is bad publicity and swirl for the moment, but the full set of truth is still not known. If this was a USC booster or former USC coach/player, then absolutely the NCAA would be all over this (reference: Alabama). But the bylaws treat infractions with agents much differently, and the real question pertinent to USC is, what did USC know and when did it know it? The facts aren’t all out yet, but it appears at this point that USC didn’t know much (although the article suggests RB coach Todd McNair knew of a couple things).
Whatever the outcome is, I welcome it, because whether this happened to USC or Florida, or Appalachian State, the fact is, the educational institution cannot control what parents are doing hundreds of miles away, and/or what promises and favors sports agents are doing. Until there are laws on the books (real laws, not NCAA regulations) banning agents from these sorts of things, this will never stop and the NCAA will be largely powerless to stop it. As Saint WR Joe Horn said today,
So take away the Heisman if you want, take away the 2004 title (as ridiculous as that idea is), and take away the 2005 results. USC will continue to dominate, and the Reggie Bush scandal will only serve to spark real reform at the NCAA. Finally.