Southern Cal Cheaters Stripped of 2004 BCS National Title
by Patroclus on Jun 6, 2011 2:51 PM PDT
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PrintI can't say that the news comes as a total shock, but with big moneyed interests and college football you never know. This afternoon, the Bowl Championship Series announced that it has stripped USC of its 2004 Football Championship. From the BCS's press release announcing the decision:
The Presidential Oversight Committee (POC) of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) today vacated participation by the University of Southern California (USC) in the 2005 Orange Bowl and the 2006 Rose Bowl, and also vacated USC's BCS national championship for the 2004-05 season, . . . . As a result of the POCs decision, there will be no BCS national champion for the 2004-05 season.
As described by the release, the effect of the BCS's determination is twofold: First, by vacating USC's participation in the 2005 and 2006 bowl games, the BCS and its member bowl committees have stripped all record of the Trojans having played in the 2005 Orange Bowl and (sadly, in a way) their 2006 loss to Texas in the Rose Bowl. As a result of their elimination from the 2005 Orange Bowl, the 2004 BCS championship that had been claimed by Southern Cal has been vacated, and will not be reawarded to another team.
The BCS is not a part of the NCAA, and is not bound by the decisions - including infraction findings and sanctions - of that organization. However, as BCS Executive Director Bill Hancock added in the above-cited release, the organization sees itself as the arbiter of Football's national championship and holds itself - and the teams competing in the series - to the same standards of eligibility as the NCAA holds to teams in other sports.
"The BCS arrangement crowns a national champion, and the BCS games are showcase events for post-season football," said BCS Executive Director Bill Hancock. "One of the best ways of ensuring that they remain so is for us to foster full compliance with NCAA rules. Accordingly, in keeping with the NCAA's recent action, USC's appearances are being vacated.
"This action reflects the scope of the BCS arrangement and is consistent with the NCAA's approach when it subsequently discovers infractions by institutions whose teams have played in NCAA championship events."
Mr. Hancock is correct in his statement that today's action is consistent with the NCAA's approach to dealing with ineligible players on a championship team. In the Fall of 2003, the NCAA vacated the D-1 Men's Volleyball championship won by the University of Hawaii, after the school discovered and self-reported the violation to the NCAA. A D-II Basketball Championship had also been vacated earlier that year due to the participation of an ineligible player.
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I'm a traditionalist
Classic Batman—Frank Gorshin as the Riddler
EGO TROIORUM MALLEUS SUM
by Bruins102NCAA on Jun 6, 2011 5:11 PM PDT up reply actions
I wonder
what keen insight Keary Colbert will have into all this
Even Trogan apologist Ted Miller can't come up with enough arguments to defend them
He posted a boiled down argument we’ve been having for some time now which ends like this:
Anti-USC: I’m sorry, I fell asleep during your diatribe. And guess what? LSU still has a crystal ball that calls it the 2003 national champion. If you don’t have the crystal ball, you don’t have a national title. That’s what you signed up for when you joined the BCS. Oh, but it doesn’t surprise me that USC folks want to make up new rules when the rules that they agreed to follow don’t suit them.
USC fan: I read between the lines and that’s nothing but a lot of envy. You wish you were a Trojan.
Trogan fan is the first to introduce bullshit into the argument = auto loss. Invoking Garrett’s Baghdad Bob moment is a nice touch by Miller as well.
Specious argument
The argument put forth by Miller’s (hypothetical) $C-fan clouds the issue with this line:
USC won the title on the field. You don’t lose a sports title in a conference room, particularly not for reasons that didn’t provide a competitive advantage (emphasis mine).
Recall that U$C was not punished because Reggie Bush’s family took money from agents – it had no control over the actions of people not affiliated with them. U$C was punished because they lacked institutional control, meaning they did not fulfill their responsibility to ensure compliance with NCAA rules (for three different sports!). It’s right there in the report in black & white and there should be no confusion.
Maybe Bush didn’t enjoy a competitive advantage from his family’s receipt of illicit benefits, but the U$C football team got a competitive advantage from its failure to enforce NCAA rules and suspend ineligible players.
by KnudsenRockne on Jun 6, 2011 4:43 PM PDT up reply actions
Thank you.
That’s the point everyone at U$C willfully ignores: $C was better because they cheated to convince Reggie Bush to come with things like the house. They would have been worse without him.
"Every day was a good day at UCLA." -Coach John Wooden
Exactly
The BCS doesn’t seem to think they were the best team on the field that day. I’m sure a professional football team would have been the best team on the field in terms of talent and skill too if they played a college team. Being “the best team” implies an inherent fairness to a contest which was lacking here because of an ineligible and (more importantly) key player playing that day.
But you know they are going to spin it their way regardless and I don’t fault the true fan for doing it.
EGO TROIORUM MALLEUS SUM
by Bruins102NCAA on Jun 6, 2011 6:25 PM PDT up reply actions
Hey, if rules of eligibility don't matter to them,
how about letting us suit up MJD on November 26th.
formerly Westwood78
Does this mean that $uc has only really completed a one-peat this past decade?
Why yes. Yes it does.
Half-peat at best
Or No-peat since the BCS was in effect when they won their fake title, which, as Miller states in the article I linked above, was agreed upon by all of college football including the Trogans to be the arbiter of determining who the sole champions are.
No crystal ball, no title.
More like no title
A bunch of sportswriters selecting a national champion is a joke. Might as well call it The Football Apprentice and have Donald Trump select the “winner”.
Especially when most of the writers don't care about following the rules
They put out some crap about how they only judge what happens on the field and it’s not up to them to make judgments on what happens off the field.
by Gen2Bruin1987 on Jun 7, 2011 1:05 AM PDT up reply actions
My feeling is that BCS, playoff, whatever...
anything that requires human opinion, specifically the writers’ opinions, to have a say in determining a champion or those who play for the title will always have controversy and prejudice for and against certain teams, especially if the ones whose opinions matter don’t know the first thing about the teams they’re ranking.
"The true athlete should have character, not be a character."- John Wooden
"Always turn a negative situation into a positive situation."- Michael Jordan
twitter:@firstto100
Agreed. And, one of the reasons I'm against a playoff system in CFB
Playoffs would not automatically solve the problems people have with the BCS, it would just spread them around.
The best thing you can do for your children is to love their mother. John Wooden
Glad the ruling has come down with some real consequences.
Even if this had not been USC, I would be happy that the NCAA took some serious actions against this program to show that there are consequences to breaking their rules. This should put any college program willing to cast aside ethical behavior to improve their program on notice.
However, the fact that this did happen to USC does make me laugh. The arrogance shown by everyone in that institution from the top down and the unwillingness for anyone there to take the blame for major violations couldn’t have helped their case. I hope Mike Garrett can’t sleep tonight, but that would mean he has a conscience.
Dreaming of Westwood while in permanent exile in Virginia
and don't forget...
without BUSH PUSH, SUC wouln’t have beaten ND…would have changed the bowl scenario.
Bush Push was in 2005
the year they got beat by Texas in the Rose Bowl. Ironically, a big reason they lost was because of Bush’s stupid attempt to make a lateral pass in the red zone which resulted in a fumble. A lot of people seem to forget that.
But hey, what do I know. I’m just the 800 lbs bruin in the room.
i meant vs Notre Dame
the Bush Push when he pushed Matt Leinart into the end zone with time expiring…
Yes
I know what you meant. Bush Push happened in 2005 against Notre Dame, that was not the year they won the BCS championship, that was the year they got beat by Texas, with Bush fumbling in the Rose Bowl.
But hey, what do I know. I’m just the 800 lbs bruin in the room.
Read a great comment on the ESPN story.
A guy responded to the SC generalization that this means nothing because the players still have their rings and their memories and etc.
This poster was a Michigan Wolverine and talked about the sanctions handed down to Michigan after the whole Fab 5 extra benefits. His basic take is that it does matter and will matter from here on out. You cannot talk about those teams without mentioning the titles stripped and games vacated. You cannot sit around with buddies at a bar talking about those great times without somebody else in the bar bringing up the NCAA punishments. As cavalier as they want to be about it. Those unrepentant cheaters will always hear about this when they fly their NC shirts and stickers. And, it won’t just be Bruins, but everybody. They will hear it from every angle.
The best thing you can do for your children is to love their mother. John Wooden
asterisk...love the idea
I’m just happy that every time people look at the no BCS champion for 2005 slot, it will always say because SUC cheated…
It was a ground breaking team.
1st time anybody has every had a Heisman stripped from them.
1st time any team has been stripped of a National Championship.
The best thing you can do for your children is to love their mother. John Wooden
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