The USC football program will receive a two-year postseason ban, a reduction in scholarships and a forfeiture of wins from at least the 2004 season when the NCAA releases it sanctions on Thursday, a source told ESPN’s Shelley Smith.
A two-year bowl ban and a loss of more than 20 football scholarships are among the sanctions that the NCAA has dealt USC, a source with knowledge of the situation said Wednesday.
Good Lord. USC will have a chance to appeal, of course — indeed, Dan Greenspan predicts the “appeal is going to make Bush vs. Gore look like small claims court” — but, assuming the penalties stay roughly as-is, this is bad. The slashed scholarships, coupled with the two-year bowl ban, not to mention the recent departure of Pete Carroll, puts the Trojans’ dynastic cycle of endless “reloading” — and for that matter, their status as a presently successful program, period — in overwhelming jeopardy.
In a word:
This isn’t the “death penalty.” But if it doesn’t knock the Trojans down a whole lot of pegs for a whole lot of years, it’ll be at least a minor miracle. Especially with Texas and Oklahoma joining the conference just around the time when the Trojans are at their nadir. (Suddenly the Pac-16 West is looking a bit subpar compared to the East, no?)
I suspect we’ll be tortured with, among other things, more than a few Notre Dame and fUCLA victories over USC in the coming years. I hate to say it, but the football monopoly in Los Angeles probably is officially over now, as of today, at least for the moment. And for Brian Kelly and the Irish, well, let’s just say I doubt my undefeated record in USC-ND games since becoming an “Irish Trojan” will last much longer.
Maybe Kiffin & co. will surprise me, holding the team together through all the adversity, using this as a teachable moment and a bonding experience to bring the players closer and get them to play harder, aiming to go undefeated and capture an AP title (there’s precedent!) — and if so, they’ll have earned every penny of their salaries. Could happen. I’ve been wrong before, especially when I’m being pessimistic. But two years is a long freakin’ time: half, or in many cases two-thirds, of an entire college career. And this isn’t a team that’s accustomed to adversity (nor is Lane Kiffin the sort of awe-inspiring motivational figure who you’d expect to shine in this sort of situation). Remember how a number of Trojans seemed to give up on the season after the Oregon loss? Well, this is like the Oregon loss times a thousand. I’m not betting on a rapid rebound.
Here’s one thing you can bet on, though. I don’t care what you say, NCAA and BCS. The banner stays up.
Also, I will not be vacating Defining Day of the Decade #4. It happened, dammit.
Now if you’ll pardon me, I need a drink.
(2003… that one still happened, right, NCAA?)
P.S. What I wrote back in January rings even truer now:
I alluded on Friday to how the missed opportunities of 2006, 2007 and 2008 — starting at the Rose Bowl versus Texas, and continuing through a Thursday night in Corvallis in September ’08 — suddenly loom much larger now that we Trojan fans face a period of profound uncertainty, and perhaps even some time in the football wilderness. (Serious NCAA sanctions would potentially be the “other shoe” yet to drop, obviously.)
Brian Grummell summarized this in a tweet thusly: “RIP: USC 2001-2004 WTF: USC 2005-2009.” But that’s not really right, since 2005 was a great year, arguably the very pinnacle of the Trojans’ success, as they built their winning streak to 34 games with epic victories over Notre Dame and Fresno State, and had a brilliant season overall against a brutal schedule. It wasn’t until the Rose Bowl — on January 4, 2006 — that Vince Young single-handedly ushered in the “WTF” era.
So the proper delineation, it seems to me, is RIP 2001-2005 and WTF 2006-2009.
The first five years of the Carroll Era saw a meteoric rise from obscurity to utter dominance, both on the field and on the recruiting trail. The next three years witnessed a series of deflating woulda-coulda-shoulda losses, starting with Rose Bowl (yes, VY was amazing, but if Reggie Bush doesn’t try that lateral, or if the replay equipment doesn’t malfunction, or if Bush lines up on 4th and 2, or…) and continuing with a series of inexplicable losses to inferior foes (Oregon State ’06, fUCLA ’06, Stanford ’07, Oregon State ’08 — also Oregon ’07, but the Ducks with Dixon were not so “inferior” and thus not as “inexplicable”), each and every one of which potentially prevented the Trojans from winning a national title.
If USC just manages to beat Oregon State or UCLA in ’06, and just manages to edge out 41-point underdog Stanford in ’07, and just manages to not have a letdown of epic proportions against the Beavers in ’08, we could’ve been talking about five consecutive national titles. That’s a lot of “ifs,” I know — and it depends on beating Ohio State twice (ha!) and Florida once in the national title games — but don’t forget how excruciatingly close each of those losses were. And also keep in mind, USC didn’t have very many close wins in that time period. It was generally blowout win or down-to-the-wire loss. So it’s only natural to ponder what might have been. Especially now.
Instead, the Carroll Era yielded “just” two national championships, one of which is AP-only and will always have something of an asterisk next to it, the other of which may yet be declared doubleplusungood and wiped from the record books by the NCAA’s Ministry of Truth. I know LSU fans are just waiting for the moment when they can declare that the “USC dynasty” featured zero national championships.
The Trojans’ trevails of 2006-2008 had wider consequences for college football, too. Into the power vacuum created by USC’s annual failure to win the “little games” stepped Florida and LSU, and 2006-2008 became an era of alleged SEC dominance in college football (extended in 2009 by Alabama, natch). USC had the most talent in the country, and thus was by far the most logical contender to put the It’s-A-War crowd in its place, yet the Trojans never even got a chance to play any of the godlike SEC teams on their way to ascending into BCS heaven — all because we couldn’t get a freakin’ “W” in Corvallis, couldn’t beat a horrible Bruins team in Pasadena, couldn’t overcome mighty Tavita Pritchard and his merry band of Drunken Trees at home in the Coliseum. Year after year, we were “playing the best football in the country” at season’s end, yet because we kept shooting ourselves in the foot against lesser opponents, we kept casting away BCS title berths that were being presented to us on a silver platter.
But we, or at least I, always figured we’d have plenty more chances where those came from. Then came ’09, which initially (when we beat tOSU, then lost to UW in Seattle) seemed like a re-run of ’06-’08, but instead turned into a horror show of mediocrity — unthinkable blowout losses, multiple defeats at home, four “Ls” on the win-loss record — not seen since the Hackett days. An 8-4 season, and a trip to Emerald Bowl, suddenly made the previous three years’ “sick of the Rose Bowl” gripes seem like the musings of, well, spoiled children.
But hey, we’d be back, baby! We’re USC! And now this. And now, who knows.
In the final analysis, 2001-2005 was an era of ascendancy and dominance that won’t soon be forgotten — even if the NCAA ends up tossing some portions of it down the memory hole. But 2006-2008 will be remembered as an era of missed opportunities. And 2009 will barely be remembered at all, except perhaps as the year when it all started to fall apart. That last part, though, depends on what the next chapter holds.
Beat the Warriors.
[Post bumped to top; original timestamp 10:35 PM. -ed.]
It isn’t the death penalty. But perhaps Life, without the possibility of parole?
You nervous nellies, this isI not even a big deal. USC could easily go undefeated next season now that the Oregon Ducks are safely behind bars where they belong. If everyone takes a breath and thinks about a 12-0 Trojan team ranked #1 in every poll, isn’t going to play in the BCS championship game? The NCAA isn’t THAT powerful. Furthermore, even just a Pac-10 champion USC is not going to be kept out of the Rose Bowl. At this point where we are seeing entire conferences transforming and others being erased from the planet, the schools are becoming more powerful than the NCAA. Certainly the Rose Bowl and BCS Championship committees have more stroke than the jokes in the NCAA office, if they have one. The BCS is powerful enough to tell the NCAA to “Sit down and shut up”. It all boils down to the almighty dollar and when we’re talking about losing millions of dollars, if one of the top draws in the sport is off the bowl slate next season– that just won’t fly.
When all is said and done, more will be said than done.
I guarantee it. There goes that word again.
Fight On!
At least USC will be back from its “Sabbatical” for the 2012 season…the year that the PAC-16 actually will start. I would suggest that Reggie Bush stay far away from L.A. for a while.
You know, I’v been thinking about this for a bit, and if the penalties as outlined are the case. I honestly think that USC should file a federal lawsuit against the NCAA seeking damages of at least 1 Billion dollars. I also think that they go for anti-trust proceedings against the NCAA. Also, on the more far fetched side of things, I think the NCAA, at least in spirt, is breaking the 13th amendment. (more on this later).
The basketball thing is a separate issue (bribes and so forth in recruiting are un-fair and anti-competitive), but the NCAA’s actions on the football side of things are atrocious. They will cause USC serious financial damages for something that, unless there is some how better evidence in the actual report, for something that is little more than rumor, hearsay, and random allegations for something a player did totally outside of the school’s actions. Not only that, but, honestly I don’t think that doing what the player allegedly did is even wrong (more on this later too).
Seriously, I honestly think that USC should take the NCAA to court so hard and so viscously that it’s the NCAA that ends up taking the “death penalty” at the end of this. The only thing that has an Anti-trust exemption is baseball. Even in the NFL recently the Supreme Court recently ruled that the NFL lacks the power to grant exclusive rights to a company to market NFL apparel linked to all teams. And the NCAA routinely acts in collusion with the NFL and NBA in strengthen their monopoly on those sports, especially in the case of the NFL. And deny players the right to act in their own best interest. Might I suggest a class action lawsuit by every NCAA student athlete against the NCAA prohibiting them from making their own endorsement deals. Such a case should be worth billions in compensatory damages. Seriously, it’s time for the NCAA to grow up or die.
The NCAA is not acting in the best interest of student athletes, or even schools with small athletic departments. No, the NCAA is acting in the best interests of lining their pockets with as much cash as possible at the expense and detriment of the student athletes they are supposed to be protecting. They are doing this in how they treat the most elite athletes in the NCAA. They require what is basically slavery and wonder why so many of the most elite athletes leave school early ignoring their education to go pro. (They are also doing it with their tragically stupid actions on the NCAA basketball tournament, but that’s something completely different).
Lets think about this rationally. Yes there are few elite student athletes, few that will go pro in any sport. But those few athletes are worth a lot of money. They are, in fact, probably worth just about every penny the NCAA makes. The NCAA, and the various school sports programs make a F*ton of money off these kids. But the NCAA requires that the only way they can be compensated for their talent, as long as they want to participate in NCAA spots, is through room, board, books, and an education. A student athlete couldn’t even work at a summer camp for high school kids without “going pro”. Think about it, a NCAA tennis star can’t make some extra money in the summer by teaching tennis. That kid might never go pro, and will probably end up as an account somewhere and they can’t use their talent to make a couple of extra bucks over the summer? (I know that’s not what happened in this case, but that’s how the rules are set up and that’s messed up.) The NCAA doesn’t let these kids work if they want to stay in the NCAA and in most cases they have to stay in the NCAA to have a chance to go pro. And many times these kids or their families need some of the extra money they could be making by taking monetary advantage of their talent before they leave school. They are forced to be slaves to the NCAA and whatever institution they are going to. This isn’t the turn of the last century when student athletes came from moneyed homes of privilege.
Now, in most cases this is actually a win for the athlete. They get an elite education that they might not otherwise have been able to get in exchange for their athletic talent. Then they go get a job doing something else. But in the case of elite athletes you are steeling from them. Not only are you steeling from them, but you also aren’t giving them the tools to make the best decisions possible for them and their interests in the future.
How does it harm competition or the smaller schools if an elite football player hires an agent? Seriously, what’s wrong with these kids getting an agent and working with advisors to decide what is in their best interest, be that staying in school or going pro? Why can they only hire an advisor after they’ve made their choice? that’s just stupid. The NCAA and the schools make a fortune off of enforced endorsements. Why aren’t the student’s allowed to make their own business deals? None of that has to do with what the schools can afford to do, it has to do with keeping the NCAA from stealing from these kids. And if you can start making deals and working on certain aspects of your career before you go pro perhaps more of these students will stay in school and finish their education. Perhaps they’ll be better equipped to make good deals when they do go pro. And by finishing their education they’ll be able to better manage their own careers and business deals in the future. Manage their money better, and keep people from stealing from them. Perhaps the NCAA could or should require these students that want to hire an agent or negotiate other deals take specific classes with an accredited curriculum for how to deal with these kinds of issues. And require very specific paperwork about what’s going on. But the fact is, this sort of stuff is already happening. The student’s get hurt and used now because it can’t be done out in the open. They would actually be better protected by making this stuff okay so they can do it in the open, and seek help and or have the tools to better deal with this kind of decision making.
The NCAA needs to grow up, when it comes to certain sports and certain athletes we aren’t talking about amateur student athletes competing for the joy of sport, we are talking about a multi-billion dollar business that makes that money of the sweat of people that aren’t even being paid for their efforts. Whose entire compensation for four years of labor is worth less than the NCAA makes off of one game they play and is only permitted in kind. In the case of these elite athletes they are actually being enslaved by the NCAA.
So I say screw the NCAA, put those money grubbing bastards out of business and deal with the reality of what actually needs to happen for all student athletes.
It really is stupid that these kids can’t make their own business deals. I’m not saying schools should be allowed to pay them or anything like that. But why, on earth are student athletes not allowed to be capitalists? It’s a free country for crying out loud and these kids should be allowed to act in their own best interest even if the NCAA doesn’t necessarily like how that looks. Seriously, I think student athletes should sue the every loving crap out of the NCAA. And I think the NFL case might just give the a precedent to do it.
Everybody knew the rules, though, and broke them anyway. You can argue for reform, but you can’t ask for it retroactively. The NCAA had to hit them hard because there are rules and they need to be enforced.
The NCAA is not the bad guy here. The athletes who broke the rules are the bad guys, along with anyone who knew about it. Go after them. Take them to court hard.
I feel bad for USC fans right now, and a lot of them are going to be angry and looking to assign blame elsewhere, but the program needs to take this hit like men.
No, sorry dude. The rules are a) stupid, and b) the NCAA represents an illegal trust enforcing slavery on our nations students. They can go to hell. The NCAA needs to get its ass handed to it for all the stupid its been participating in the last many years.
If the NCAA response were in any way rational, sure. But sorry, this is ridiculous, and the NCAA needs to go to hell.
I think every USC alumnus should also file a class action suit against the NCAA for illegally devaluing our investment. The NCAA are the f*ers that need to be taught a lesson. That they can’t steal from people and get away with it.
kcatnd, the problem is the NCAA gets to arbitrarily choose the punishment so its not as simple as “they broke the rules so they deserve what they got”. I agree completely that USC deserves to be punished. 100% agree if what is alleged occured. But the punishment shoudl fit the crime and/or serve to REALLY deter future behavior. And you and I both agree that the ones who are getting punished here aren’t the ones who DID something wrong.
I also agree to an extent with dcl, the NCAA is abusing its power and takes as much advantage of Bush as teh univeristy did while this was all gonig on by the licensing and tv deals that it makes money off of. Since they hold monopoly power in college athletics thy should be held to a higher standard of fairness. I note here as I have done elsewhere that this is yet another example of a west coast football power recieving harsher penalties for similar (or in the Huskies case lesser) violations than east coast schools recieved in similar situations.
The NCAA is not the bad guy here.
HAHAHAHAHA! So how about the women’s tennis player who made some long-distance calls to her family, totaling ~$7,000 supposedly (I don’t buy that — we’re in the era of Skype, Vonage, and free long distance mobile calling plans!!!), and the punishment was? Vacating all the wins in which she participated. WHAT?!?!? Because she called her family, she was technically ineligible, and the result on the tennis court should be nullified???
Yes, the NCAA is not the bad guy here. [/rolls eyes]
USC was punished almost equal to what Alabama was punished with earlier this decade. Bama had boosters paying players and recruits. USC had a rogue athlete’s step-dad getting some free rent.
Really kcatnd, one of these is not like the other.