June 16, 2010

Feel violated? Profligate Trojans more fraudulent than fabled

By Dennis Dodd | CBSSports.com Senior Writer
Follow Dennis

Football Camelot was a fraud.

We were fooled.

Lane Kiffin and quarterback Matt Barkley face an uncertain future at Southern Cal. (Getty Images)

He decided while USC looked the other way. Predictable result: USC looked down the barrel of the NCAA gun Thursday and found a bullet with its name on it. The crippling penalties it received after four long, hard years showed how close the NCAA could come to handing out the death penalty without shutting down a program.

Pretty damn close, it turns out.

There was an arduous infractions hearing meeting in February (30 hours over three days produced several boxes of documents). Between that hearing and Thursday's announcement there was an almost four-month wait. That committee's chairman, Paul Dee, explained/apologized for the overall length of the case. It's been long enough for Reggie Bush to win a national championship, a Heisman, a Super Bowl and a Kardashian. Could be, only the Super Bowl ring remains.

Because Bush competed while ineligible -- The Ultimate Violation in the NCAA's eyes -- his Heisman Trophy is in play. A Heisman official already has been quoted as saying the Heisman Trust would review Bush's Stiff-Arm if the NCAA came down hard. The BCS has a rule in place that could vacate USC's 2004 Orange Bowl championship win over Oklahoma. Don't get excited Sooners, 55-19 losers to the Trojans that night. "Vacated" means just what it says. There will be no winner listed for 2004. It would be the first time a championship had been taken away in I-A football.

" ... this case," the infractions report stated, "strike(s) at the heart of the NCAA amateurism principal." Sounds both lofty and hypocritical. Kids are always going to be tempted to have their hands out because they aren't paid. The NCAA (and NFL) make the best ones wait three years to go pro once they get to college.

If this had been a fourth-round draft choice, no one would have cared. But Bush was a first-round overall talent and people, especially USC people, should have cared, Dee said. That amateurism principal basically states you can't be paid like an Enron executive and still play college football.

"The real issue here is if you have high profile players your [compliance] staff has to monitor those students at a higher level," Dee said.

Translation: Maybe no one knew at USC, but they should have known. You can't be good enough to prepare a meticulous game plan for San Jose State and then plead ignorance when your best player is making the equivalent of the NBA minimum.

That's why a playoff won't work. Not now, not yet even with conference alignment making a playoff easier, if not more likely. There would be more money for everyone -- but the players. That amateurism principal would still be in place. The temptation to violate it would be greater.

In the end, a dynasty is dead. Consecutive postseason bans and the loss of 30 scholarships over three years will take care of that. What hurts in the end is that we were all duped.

 Duped because we thought a carefree genius named Pete Carroll could actually pull it off. Winning the right way while making USC a destination -- for players, assistants, fans and media. It was a destination for the likes of Will Ferrell catching passes from Matt Leinart but also oily agents hanging around Heritage Hall.

Buried deep in the middle of Thursday's infractions report is the NCAA's assertion that "the general campus environment surrounding the violations troubled the committee." USC "failed to regulate access to practice," ... "including lockerrooms." Call it the Snoop Dogg clause.

If you're looking for someone to blame, dismiss Carroll. Dee basically did saying, "the penalties wouldn't have been any different had Pete Carroll stayed." That means this sordid result falls at the feet of AD Mike Garrett, president Steve Sample and a clueless compliance staff.

USC went rogue because it could. It had everything -- sun, talent, coaching -- and still fell victim to (or looked the other way while there was) cheating. The private institution seemed like it was accountable only to itself. Garrett updated the public on the progress of the case with a taped statement on the Internet and only after being shamed into talking by the Los Angeles Times.

In the immediate aftermath, USC appealed, which is its right. But it also showed how seriously it took this case, which is to say not enough. Paging through the full 67-page report, USC didn't agree with at least two major findings by the NCAA.

But that wasn't the biggest story.

Chris Petersen could have taken the job. Boise State's fine, young coach would have been interested in January -- if he had gotten a call. Sure, Petersen had questions about the investigation. Who didn't? The point is, USC AD Mike Garrett ran the Pete Carroll search like he ran his department. Shoddily.

But that wasn't the biggest story.

On a day of news overload, the conference became, for all practical purposes, the Pac-9 for the next two years. USC got that two-year bowl ban, kind of putting to rest the theory that the NCAA favored the big guys in these sorts of cases. Alabama being Alabama, it reloaded in a hurry, changed coaches a couple of times and won a national championship seven years after the last year of the bowl ban.

But that wasn't the biggest story.

On a day when the league lost USC as a viable football program for the near future, it got a replacement. Conveniently, the conference invited Colorado pushing membership up to 10 again. The Buffs haven't been world beaters but at least they can go to a bowl if they finish 7-5.

The conference expanded just in time. That's not to say USC can't rebound as Alabama did, but a best-case prospect of having to wait seven years has to chill the blood in South Central.

USC was docked those 30 scholarships over three years. That's the elimination of 1.2 scholarship classes. Lane Kiffin told me a couple of months ago that he believed USC could be more than competitive playing with 75 scholarship players. Try playing with 70 for three consecutive years. Try having your rivals (helllloooo, UCLA) swoop in and take over the city. Try keeping the guys you have.

That's right, the scholarship losses may be just the beginning. Because of the two-year bowl ban, under NCAA rules, Kiffin's entire first recruiting class could conceivably appeal to transfer without having to sit out. That group includes Seantrel Henderson, the nation's No. 1 recruit. Henderson waited until late March to sign his letter because he was concerned about the NCAA investigation -- looks like he got bad information. Rising juniors and seniors could appeal to transfer immediately for the same reason.

"There's going to be a little bit of a fire sale," predicted one veteran compliance official from another school.

USC could find out that only thing worse than the death penalty is a slow death penalty.

At the end of the day it wasn't clear what was clear: Let's see, was it USC getting docked 30 scholarships or 30 schools changing conferences on Thursday? Take a look at the USC infractions report: There was so much bling being tossed around that Kardashian should be jealous. By the looks of things, Bush has actually cut back his spending since his college days.

But that's not the biggest story. It's safe to say this was the busiest June 10 in college athletics history. Just take a look at the titles of consecutive e-mails in my in-box.

University of Colorado to join Pac-10 Conference

TMZ and Oklahoma State

Texas Tech University Statement On Conference Realignment

Oklahoma to SEC? Texas and A&M to the Big Ten?

Wait, TMZ?

Please, give us back Camelot.