It is becoming obvious what USC did in sanctioning their basketball team, was to try to avoid damage to their football team.  They failed. 

But is USC interested in fixing their football team's ethical problems?  It does not seem like they are.  If they are why did they hire Lane Kiffin and pay him such an exorbitant sum?   Obviously, they paid so much for Kiffin to keep him in the face of the pending sanctions.  However, if you are trying to fix things, why not hire someone who was not associated with the past problems? 

Yet ESPN is reporting that, except Garrett, no one is around from the time of the sanctions.  The truth is Kiffin was in the middle or at least the fringe of everything.

Kiffin joined the "University of Southern California (USC) staff in 2001 and became the wide receivers coach in 2002. In 2004, he added the duties of passing game coordinator and was promoted to offensive coordinator in 2005. Kiffin also took the reins as recruiting coordinator that year, after offensive coordinator Norm Chow left USC for the same position with the NFL's Tennessee Titans. Along with these duties, Kiffin continued as the wide receivers coach."

Obviously Pete Carroll has more responsibly for what happen. But should Kiffin, promoted to recruiting coordinator, have known what SC was doing at the time and what they had done?  If Kiffin tried to clean things up, that would be one thing.  But there is no evidence he did anything different and was if anything Caroll's prodigy/mentor.

Kiffin had to know what was going on and obviously he went along and was promoted.  If SC wanted to clean house, why not hire someone else at that outrageous salary who had a history of running clean programs.  If they wanted to change the culutre why not hire someone from the outside?

It seems the forward looking sanctions in this case may be extremely appropriate given that USC has shown no desire to change their culture and the people who led or were leaders in the program during the period in question, Garrett and Kiffin, are still there and have been retained or, in Kiffin's case, rewarded.