Troy Burning: Denial And Delusion Still Dominating The Sleazy & Corrupt Trogandom

Let's start this Friday by building on the point DCBruins made about Hello Kiffin being a big part of the Trogan's dirty mess. One of the key PR defenses coming from "over there" right now is that pure as white snow Hello Kiffin, Ed Orgeron and the current staff were not around when the NCAA violations took place under Cheatey Petey. DCBruins laid out why that is complete nonsense.  It is not that difficult to figure out how a normal, reasonable person would construe the hiring of this sleazebag as nothing but an F U to the NCAA, who was probably looking for some sign, any sign of contrition from Southern Cal.

It is also worth noting out what Hello Kiffin did after he took over. He not only retained Todd "the Dogfighter" McNair, but he kept him as one of his lead recruiters, despite all the controversies swirling around him. One would think given the attention around him in the Reggie Bush scandal, the Trogans would exercise caution and keep him with a low profile. Instead Hello Kiffin kept McNair on the recruiting trail going after high profile target such as DeAnthony Thomas (I would guess DeAnthony Thomas' recruiting is barely getting started).

As for the poor Trogan players who weren't around when Bush and OJ2 were prancing around in their illegal bling, the NCAA had a simple, straight forward answer (emphasis added throughout):

The Committee on Infractions saw it differently. Yes no current Trojans are involved, yet most chose to go to USC while the school was being investigated. More importantly, Dee said the committee noted the real world way that recruiting works.

When Reggie Bush is driving around campus in a tricked-out car purchased, in part, by marketing agents, it doesn't scare away the next round of recruits. It draws them in.

If you don't understand that, you don't understand recruiting.

" [The extra benefits] enhanced recruiting which led to their ability to recruit other athletes," Dee said when explaining why the significant loss of scholarships. In essence, this wasn't just about Reggie Bush. This was about the values of USC football.

As for the two-year postseason ban, Dee noted that's the same number of bowl games that Bush played in after compromising his amateur status. Fair is fair, he was saying.

So this whole spin we have been hearing coming through various media shills on ESPN and other tradmed outlets about poor Kiffin and his recruits are getting hurt for Petey,Timmeh, Bush and OJ2's transgressions is nothing short of garbage. Their entire cheating, corrupt and sleazy institution was involved in it.  Diamond Leung from tWWL gave us a peak into the corrupt Trogandom:

"Regardless of what happens in that appeal, we know this: SC is more powerful than anything else," Kiffin said. "The university, the football program, the basketball program -- no matter what they try to do to us, it won't matter."

Before dining on seared fillet mignon and chocolate mousse cake, Garrett was greeted warmly with hugs and handshakes by USC fans who each paid at least $75 for event admission.

And Hello Kiffin is still showing no signs of basic understanding what it means to take responsibility:

Kiffin, playing to the crowd, compared the idea of institutional control to raising children.

"Imagine if you have 120 of them to control," he said. "And imagine if you also have responsibility for every parent and every family member they have. It's a pretty difficult situation."

Poor, poor Trogan victims. It is pretty hilarious to see guys so pathetically and weakly attempt to paint themselves as innocent victims despite perpetrating sleaze and poisoning the concept of amateur athletics for years in an out of control athletic environment. 

The clowns have filed what looks to be a bogus and laughable response to the NCAA, which still is in denial over the facts meticulously put together by NCAA officials after four years of investigation.

Moreover, keep in mind one can easily argue that the NCAA officials went easy on these cheating scumbags as they could have gone for the bowl ban, plus there is also other outstanding issues such as illegal benefits bestowed on Joe McKnight and also the recruiting violations that might have taken placed when he was lured out of Louisiana. So for these cheaters to whine about getting hit hard ... well it is just extremely amusing. More after the jump.

tWWL's Pat Forde has a good column on the corrupt institution over there:

USC was dealt with harshly for having enabled, marketed and profited from the semiprofessional careers of football star Reggie Bush and basketball star O.J. Mayo. It was slammed with a two-year postseason football ban -- one of just six multi-year bans in NCAA history -- to go along with a self-imposed one-year ban in basketball. It was deprived of 10 football scholarships for each of the next three years, to go along with a self-imposed scholarship reduction in basketball. Its record book was shredded, with vacated victories by the dozen. And the legacies of two USC heroes -- Bush and Pete "Cut and Run" Carroll -- were significantly tainted as well.

Judging by their actions, a whole lot of people didn't see that coming. A whole lot of people seemed to think USC was bulletproof -- right up until the bullet-riddled body of Tommy Trojan was revealed today.

Which is why this is a good day in college sports. Not because USC took the biggest hit for a major program since Alabama football got slammed eight years ago. Because you, the fan, can trust the NCAA enforcement and infractions arms to go after the big guys with the same vigor as they go after the little guys.

(With, granted, a ton of help from the media reports, which exposed the vast majority of activities detailed in the report, and the NCAA posse rode in thereafter.)

Southern Cal richly deserved to get hammered. As the Committee on Infractions' 67-page public report illustrates, USC operated a corrupt athletic institution for years.

What is also going to be interesting to watch is the credibility of Hello Kiffin. It certainly appears now that he lied (which is not shocking for a petty sleazebag like him) to recruits like Dillon Baxter. Forde pointed out Lame was dishonest with at least another recruit:

According to media reports, Kiffin misled at least one recruit -- superstar offensive tackle Seantrel Henderson. The New York Times reported that Kiffin told Hendersons and his family not to worry about potential NCAA sanctions.

"As far as he's been informed -- he was very, very choosy with his words -- there shouldn't be anything going wrong because there was no knowledge of anything going on by the staff," Henderson's father, Sean, told The Times.

The story continued: "The Hendersons asked Kiffin to be clear about what impact the NCAA might have on the Trojans' football program, Sean Henderson said. Just before Seantrel chose USC on Wednesday, Kiffin reiterated not to listen to others who said the Trojans might face sanctions."

The fact is, Kiffin and everyone else at USC had no way of knowing whether the school was in the clear at that point. To present any different message to recruits was dishonest.

It will be interesting to see how they hold on to some of these recruits. They can launch their bogus appeals process but it should only delay the inevitable. Trogans can keep pursuing their deluded appeal thinking they can own the NCAA the way they owned the LA City Hall all these years, but this time they are not going to have their pathetic alums bailing out their cherished little corrupt football program. Eyes of the entire NCAA world is going to be on the appeals committee who will have to consider the exact same fact put together by the COI and now examined by rationale college football fans all across the country. So yeah, good luck with that appeal Trogans.

Now in terms of the sanctions, keep in mind the Trogans now have to deal with a hard cap of 75 scholies and give out a maximum of 15 scholies per year. Per our understanding Southern Cal has 17 seniors graduating in 2011. So at the end of 201. So that means Trojans might have around 70 players on their roster on scholarship (if there is no attrition or transfer). That doesn't leave them for many scholarships to give out for class of 2011. It could be as little as just 3 or 4. They already have taken 6 commits for this years class. So uh yeah, Mikey we are really envious about the kind of "situation" if you have put your little sleazy program in. Cheat on.

GO BRUINS.