There is the ever popular “I want to tell the American People, I did not have sex with that runner.” That has a nice presidential sound.

In that same vein, Timmeh could say “I am not a crook.”

I think they will eventually go with “We can categorically state that we have never heard of Louis Johnson or Rodney Guillory, and neither have ever set foot on the campus. Further, we have never heard of OJ Mayo, and you can be darn certain he never set foot in any classroom at justsc. Last but not least, we have never heard of Timmeh Floyd, do not know his family, wouldn’t recognize him if he was handing us a Sickle Cell Anemia Foundation credit card, and indeed our basketball coach is and always shall be either Bob Boyd or Forrest Twogood.”

But seriously folks, watch for the classic trio: Deny, Obfuscate, Accuse. The acronym for that classic defense is the way it usually ends up.

“I didn’t do it, nobody saw me do it, and you can’t prove anything!”

Nestor, that is one of the funniest things I’ve read on BN. What is even funnier (sadder?) is that we are sure to hear that b.s. from the trojies.

Some I already proposed:

-The Chewbacca Defense

-(point behind the NCAA investigator and shout, “Look, it’s Sam Gilbert!”). Turn and run when he/she looks the other way.

-We have looked absolutely everywhere [between the 40 yard lines in the Coliseum] and found no wrongdoing. Hey, we can’t be responsible for everyone our players and coaches come into contact with! Wait, what? We can? Hey look-it’s Sam Gilbert!

Some others SC is likely to throw out:

-Forget about this. We should really be focusing on nefarious bags of groceries.

-Throw Timmeh under the bus in an effort to spare Cheatie and the real cash cow.

-How much of a “donation” to the NCAA would it take for all of this to just go away.

-Did you know that Jerry Tarkanian is still alive? It’s true. Here is his address.

-You can’t do anything to us. We OWN the NCAA!

Cal Southern fan reactions are hilarious. Look at the comments to the OC Trojister blog article on the interview with the Yahoo reporter. As TJ Simers says, these people live among you.

Here are a few of the unedited gems (with spelling errors and all!):

The “Yahoo is written by non-credible yahoos defense:”

When has Yahoo Sports reporteers ever been rigth on a story? Give me one thing they were ever correct about prior to anything coming from CNNsi or ESPN or even FOX sports? NOT ONE Thing.
When you talk about the Rodney Guillory situation, didn’t USC ask the NCAA to do their own investigation prior to OJ signing or playing at USC and the NCAA Cleared OJ to play? YES they did.

The “they were dirty before they got here defense:”

Sorry, but this is complete BS. The reporter’s assertion that USC facitated and somehow introduced these relationships is incredibly false. These people were close with the atheletes independently of being visiting them on campus or calling them on their cell phones one they were at USC. Rodney Guillory sank his claws into OJ Mayo long before he was even recruited by USC. The Bush family got involved with Reggies’ handlers through existing personal relationships the father had. Michael, please call the Yahoo reporter on this assertion, which it is so incredibly false, it defies belief and obviously calls into question the credibilty of the reporter. You can argue that USC should have been much more concerned about these apparrent relationships and done a more thorough investigation, but to sugggest that the "access" enabled these relationships is ludicrous.

This one is vital because it assumes that a player’s misconduct can not be imputed to a university, regardless of the university’s action or inaction.

The “everyone is lying but us defense:”

And, Louis Johnson is a convicted felon for cocaine, a failed sportswriter, a wannabe Guillory hoops runner, and he is writing a book. Louis Johnson has no credibility whatsoever. And, he did not witness the purported event. It is hearsay from a felon with a motive. Does anyone really believe that if OJ Mayo was for sale, that $1k would be the asking price? You cannot be serious. The Yahoo report is ludicrous.

The “you’ll never prove it so it didn’t happen defense:”

I find the line of reporting to be extremely distasteful. Floyd giving $1,000 is something that is never going to be proven or disproven, so the theory that Johnson is telling the truth out of perjury prosecution is weak. It comes down to he said-he said.

In the mean time, Tim Floyd’s reputation and USC’s reputation take a beating simply because this pseudo news is so widely reported.

I should think that to demonstrate lack of instutional control, NCAA would want multiple, provable offenses, within the same time period and within one sport. They are not there yet, and I doubt they will be! Fight on!

I especially like the comment about Floyd’s and SC’s reputation taking a beating. Nice touch. Exactly what is the reputation of a coach who: hires players’ fathers, hires aau coaches, gives scholarships to unqualified posers as part of package deals, and regularly takes players from diploma mills?

Guillory was hired as an “assistant conditioning coach,” and he legally adopted OJ Mayo.