So say rumors on the Internets.
UPDATE: Here’s the story. Multiple media folks are confirming it.
So, no postseason (again) for USC in 2011-12. Any seniors who wish to transfer can (again) do so and play immediately elsewhere. Only shot at a national title is (again) the AP-only version. And the inaugural Pac-12 South will have just five teams competing for a spot in the conference title game, two of which are Colorado and UCLA. So, basically, three teams. Your move, Arizona, Arizona State and Utah.
P.S. Auburn’s national title remains intact as of this hour, as does Ohio State’s Sugar Bowl title. Also, Jim Tressel is still Ohio State’s coach at last check. Just in case you were wondering.
THURSDAY UPDATE: It’s now official. Here’s the NCAA’s report (PDF). USC responds:
“We respectfully, but vehemently, disagree with the findings of the NCAA’s Infractions Appeals Committee,” USC said in a statement Thursday. “Our position was that the Committee on Infractions abused its discretion and imposed penalties last June that were excessive and inconsistent with established case precedent.”
[President Max] Nikias, in a statement said: “We are extremely disappointed in this result. We are very concerned that the historical value of case precedent and the right to fair process in the NCAA adjudicative process, both in terms of the ability of an institution to defend itself or prove an abuse of discretion on appeal, have been substantially eroded.
“Further, the decisions of the [Committee on Infractions] and [Infractions Appeals Committee] have set a standard that leaves little, if any, room to discipline more egregious violations that will be addressed by the NCAA in the future without irreparably damaging athletic programs across the country.”
That’s what I’ve been saying since the fall. The NCAA is going to have to start handing out “death penalties” if it’s going to be remotely consistent going forward. I’m frankly shocked that the appeals committee didn’t have the foresight to see that. But I suppose I shouldn’t be. Although I originally counseled Trojans to accept the sanctions without whining, it’s subsequently become clear that the NCAA cares not for consistency, has no foresight, and is basically a corrupt and/or incompetent joke of an organization. This just cements that.
Anyway, Nikias added, “Notwithstanding this troubling concern and our grave disappointment, we will look forward to the future.” In other words, the NCAA sucks, but we ain’t suing them.
[Original timestamp 2:10 PM on May 25; Bumped to top. -ed]
P.S. USC A.D. Pat Haden: “If we have to prove an abuse of discretion and there is no standard because you can’t use past precedents, how do you prove an abuse of discretion? I don’t know how you overcome the burden. It’s kind of circular.” Indeed.
Also, Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott, laying down the fightin’ words:
We join the fans, alumni, staff and leadership of USC in being extremely disappointed with today’s decision. I want to state emphatically that our conference is committed to adhering to the highest ethical standards and compliance with NCAA rules. USC’s new leadership has certainly demonstrated this with its handling of the sanctions and by establishing a new culture of compliance for its athletic programs with its win-by-the-rules approach.
I respect USC’s decision to take the high ground and not pursue any further recourse to the NCAA ruling. At the same time, I fully expect that every NCAA member institution be held to the same high standards. These sanctions, notably the postseason ban, have a devastating effect on current student-athletes, most of whom were in elementary and junior high school at the time of the alleged violations.
To me, that is a source of great frustration and disappointment. Going forward, we can and need to do better in terms of the enforcement process.
Aside from the boldfaced shot across the NCAA’s bow in reference to Auburn and Ohio State, does anyone else sense the unspoken, nascent seed of a notion of big conferences seceding from the NCAA if “we” fail to “do better in terms of the enforcement process”? As a fan of the mid-majors, I obviously don’t want that to happen, but the NCAA may be writing its own obituary if it keeps this up.
The NCAA is such a joke. USC is facing major sanctions for the actions of one player with no evidence the coaches knew anything while Ohio State still has Tressel as head coach despite indisputable evidence he covered up major violations by his players.
Also, not sure if its possible, but just in case it is I’d love for USC and the Pac-12 to pursue some sort of legal action against the NCAA for its capricious behavior.
Though remember, the NCAA is a slow as all get out. This punishment is for Reggie Bush several years ago. THE Ohio State University (blah) may yet get a hammer from the NCAA. But I agree: I can’t believe Tressel is still employed. They are basically playing chicken with the NCAA right now.
@B. Minich – In the case of the Bush thing they had to try and dig up dirt on him in the first place. Seems like the Tressel thing should be moving a LOT faster given that they allready HAVE the dirt.
1. Pat Haden previously said that USC would not go to court over an adverse decision on the appeal.
2. The NCAA is actually moving quickly on the Tressel matter…they have already sent out the notification of charges and the hearing has already been scheduled for August 12….so that is quite quick for this kind of thing.
While of course no one has yet seen the USC decison, I regret Haden’s statement that USC would not appeal even before the decision came out. That certainly would seem to be a statement to the NCAA that USC really wasn’t serious about the whole thing. If the USC decision is as weak as its decision on McNair then I would have liked to have seen USC challenge that decision in court. Having previously litigated these kinds of administrative hearings as well as the mandamus litigation that would follow, I think USC would have had a reasonably good chance….(unless they got a UCLA judge :))…..I suspect we will now see such a case filed by McNair….who was probably only waiting on the USC decision to see if there was anything there that would have helped him. (e.g. a decision in favor of USC could potentially have been used by McNair to show an inconsistency by the NCAA in evaluating the same facts that were found adverse to McNair.)
I’ll be disappointed if USC doesn’t sue.
Yeah…I wish we would file a legal challenge….It really does not take that much. Assuming this could be done in California (which I really don’t know at this time) all you do is file a petition for writ of administrative mandamus. Then each side gets an opportunity file written briefs and the court rules simply based on the papers and the transcript of the record…there are no witnesses called.
Of course even if USC wins, the court can not issue its own set of penalties, the best USC could hope for is a ruling that the facts don’t support many of the findings and that as a consequence the penalties are not supported by the findings. Then the matter would get sent back to the NCAA for a new ruling. (assuming of course that the NCAA did not appeal the trial court decision.) But if USC got that initial ruling by the court then it would seem likely that the penalties would be reduced to what USC was asking for.
Yeah, but how long would that take? I’m guessing they’d rather rip the band-aid off instead of having the penalties stayed for another season and then risk having a bowl ban next year, pushing the scholarship reductions another year into the future, etc. At some point, it’s probably better to just get it over with. That said, this decision is really very problematic for the health of college sports as a whole. It’s not even about USC anymore. Whatever — we should have been more careful, we weren’t, and now we’re being penalized too harshly, but that’s the risk you take when you aren’t sufficiently careful. It’s not really fair, but it’s life. The bigger concern is not for the Trojans but for the whole sport.
The Superior Court part of the case would probably take no more than 30 days or so…but the appeals, etc. would extend it of course.
FWIW….I’ve now had a chance to read the actual appeal decision. This is a much better written decision than the committee rendered in the McNair case. In the McNair case the committee had some very conclusatory statements and really failed to analyse the facts against the findings. In this case, however, the committee took those steps and while I would argue that the evidence does not support a lot of the things they said, there is still, by USC’s admission, lots of violations. So if it boils down to simply whether the penalties are excessive, I think a Superior Court would likely not substitute its judgment for the NCAA….particularly since the committee went out of its way to explain why it did not find USC’s argument on penalties persuasive.
By the way…here is a link the the decision.
http://www.ncaa.com/content/usc-public-report-0
If OSU and Auburn don’t get the Death Penalty USC should sue the shit out of the NCAA.
The NCAA is a joke. The concern that this sets a precedent going forward with the NCAA is also a joke. There’s different sets of rules for every program. The little programs get smashed because they are expendable. The SEC can do whatever they want, they’re the fair haired boy of the NCAA. The other big programs can do pretty much whatever they want also and face a varietal of inconsequential slaps.
The beef the NCAA has with USC is personal, not rational. All the people whining and crying about USC “cheating” and the NCAA doing nothing about it for years was what was considered in the ruling, not the facts of the case. The finding by the NCAA was that Bush received gifts from an agent years after enrolling at USC, approximately over the course of his last 14 games at USC. There’s no legitimate evidence to suggest that the coaches knew anything about it, but that’s what the NCAA found. ONE player.
Miami was found to have paid cash directly to, at least, 141 players in the 90s for enrolling and playing on the football team. Over a quarter million dollars. Players were paid 200 dollars per touchdown. These are FACTS and the punishment was losing their bowl game after an 8-3 sentence. Come on. The Athletic Director during the violations at Miami was Paul Dee. He is now the chairman of Committee on Infractions at the NCAA. That is not a joke.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Dee
NCAA justice may be slow in rolling, but does anyone really expect Auburn and Cam Newton to face the same consequences as USC? Cam Newton’s father already openly admitted to soliciting money directly from universities in return for his son enrolling there, that action makes a player inneligible, no more questions needed, but knowing this, the NCAA still permitted Cam to continue playing 2 or 3 more games including the SEC championship and the BCS championship. So clearly they don’t actually care about enforcing the rules.
The tOSU story continues to get bigger. http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=6592185
What is interesting is that the current charges against tOSU do not contain an allegation of “lack of institutional control”….which was the problem for USC. This, despite the fact that the “defense” for the Sugar Bowl Five was an admission that tOSU had failed to tell them they could not sell their stuff. Now every week seems to bring out more problems….the story a couple of weeks ago about issues concerning auto purchases was seemingly under control as it appeared that there may not have been any special deals…but this new story not only is going to make the auto story continue but also the selling of rings, etc. seems to be involving lots more players.
One wonders if the NCAA may need to postpone the August hearing in order to evaluate all the new stuff and perhaps increase the charges.
I’m not going to pile on here; everyone recognizes just how screwed up the NCAA is, how egregiously over-the-top this punishment is, and that we really ought to sue the pants off these bitches. But, our voices don’t matter — Pat Haden said we’re going to Thank You Sir and May I Have Another, and that’s that. So I’ll just say this: Every time I have a bowel movement, I’m going to refer to it as “making an NCAA”. With your help, we can make this phrase the new Santorum.
I wonder if this is why Tressel was forced to walk the plank? Because, yeah, now the NCAA has to go straight to the cobalt jacketed kiloton funwagon on OSU given _how many_ violations they apparently had. Sorry, I’m not one for litigating, but on the other hand yeah, if I were USC / Pac-12 I’d just let it be known that A. there’d be one hell of a suing going on if OSU doesn’t get the dirt nap treatment and B. it’d be awfully, um, _interesting_ if the Justice Department were to get some info on BCS-fixing in the next few weeks because of this. You know, the kind of info that changes “grand standing U.S. attorneys” to “NCAA bigwigs doing the perp walk for fraud.”