Is Hello Kiffin Telling Trojan Recruits There Will Be No Serious Sanctions On U$C* From The NCAA?

The report that USC received (probably sometime in October) will have laid out the allegations of misconduct against USC and the findings that came out of the NCAA’s investigation (with or without USC’s cooperation). While SC still has it’s response and appearance at the hearing to make its case, given the manner in which NCAA investigations are conducted – investigators attempt to work with the institution in conducting the investigation – USC’s counter was likely already reflected in the NCAA’s initial letter of allegations.

While no decision has likely been made by the committee, there is precedent regarding sanctions applicable to programs for particular types of offenses (as well as positive/negative effects for cooperation or lack of cooperation with the investigation), and SC’s AD/compliance department has likely looked into that, and can come up with a realistic range of sanctions that may be applied by the committee.

The infractions committee stated exactly that in their report. Though ’Bama’s infractions were actually quite a bit worse than what SC has been caught doing – and the worst of SC’s problems will likely fall on Basketball (Floyd/Gillory/Mayo); Alabama additionally was a double-repeat violator (the near-death penalty involved the program getting busted 2 years following another repeat violator sanction), which causes the NCAA to come down much harder than might otherwise be the case.

…it also was a starting point for the dissolution of the SouthWest Conference.

I’d love to see $c get hammered. But at the end of the day $c is a revenue generator for the NCAA so they have a vested interest in $c remaining viable.

The university connection to the payment is significant in terms of what the actual NCAA violation is. While it is certainly possible for a school to use boosters and other persons not working for the school as go-betweens, you still have to determine where the payments (or at least the idea/inspiration) came from, and what the intent of the payments were.

In the Bush matter, the payments (and resulting ineligibility) came from Lake and Michaels due to their own self-interest, after Bush was playing for USC. There does not seem to be any evidence that the “New Era” folks had any connection to USC, nor did they have an interest in the team’s success (aside from Bush’s success > a more valuable player to market). The key issue with USC in this particular matter has to do with (lack of) control and oversight over the program, in that the coaching and/or the compliance staff. In contrast, the OJ Mayo situation (which I believe is where the NCAA will really come down on USC) involved the coaching staff paying a player’s representative on at least one occasion, during his recruitment to the university.

The summary of above: It appears that Bush’s ineligibility was not caused by the actions of either the SC staff/administration or boosters; the money was not paid to benefit SC (to recruit him to the school, for example) nor was his playing for USC the motivation for the payments – It did not make a difference to “New Era” if Bush was playing for USC, or UCLA/ASU/Michigan… maybe aside from the increased media attention that SC had, and the access that Bush/USC’s proximity to them gave. SC’s main problem here (besides simply having an ineligible player participate in games) relates to Institutional control, oversight of athletics, and policies that allowed persons such as the New Era people to have easy access to players. Mayo, on the other hand, was paid by a USC coach, during the period of his recruitment.

In the Alabama and SMU cases, there were indisputable linkages between the $$ and the university’s athletic department and coaching staffs. SMU had a booster-funded slush fund, from which money was distributed by the athletic department to players. In Alabama’s case, boosters were providing money and cars to players (and in one case, a players HS coach) directly, under the coordination of the Football coaching staff.

If the NCAA can show that USC’s lax compliance regime and/or Pete Carroll’s permissive policies re. agent access to practices and games is a systematic effort to allow players to benefit from meeting such people, or that they are allowing boosters to access players or recruits (as Alabama did), then there is a similarity to the biggies.

SC is considered a repeat offender if the (major) offense occurred before Fall 2006, which encompasses Bush’s career. From having looked at several different Infraction committee reports, even in massively blatant cases, they do not look likely to impose the Death Penalty absent a multiple-repeat infraction (SMU and Alabama were both double repeat offenders; SMU for a similar violation to what got them banned).