Fight on for Old SC
They have no wins since 2003!
Quite a day in college football yesterday but the big news comes from Los Angeles where it appears that the salad days of Southern California will be rendered moot, declared to have never happened. Tomorrow, the NCAA will announce its findings and the penalties it will impose upon the USC football and basketball programs as a result of a four-year investigation into the two programs based on allegations made for the school's handling of former stars Reggie Bush and O.J. Mayo.
The school put sanctions on their own basketball program last year, perhaps in an event to have the NCAA go easy on the glamorous football program. Seems like the basketball penalties, which included a ban from the NCAA Tournament and forfeiture of all of their wins in the 2007-2008 season, had no affect on the football penalties as it is being reported by the Los Angeles Times that the football program will lose more than 20 scholarships and receive a two-year ban from bowl games. ESPN.com is reporting that they will also have to forfeit games from at least the 2004 season, the only year that USC won a BCS national championship.
Meanwhile, the vultures of out. Cal's only loss of the 2004 season was a memorable one in Los Angeles to USC. Aaron Rodgers, their quarterback that season, wrote on Twitter: "Looking forward to getting my PAC-10 championship ring from the '04 season."
Somewhere, Charlie Weis can be updating his resume: "As Notre Dame head coach, didn't lose to Notre Dame in 2005." And you know the Auburn crowd will soon be trying to get their 2004 national championship.
The official word from the NCAA will come down at 3 pm EST today but that right there is a good start. A championship vacated, scholarships thrown away, bowl games left on the table. This already is sounding like sanctions more severe than those handed down to Alabama in 2002, the ones that caused Dennis Franchione to get out of dodge. Pete Carroll apparently did the same. If the University of Southern California has any bit of integrity left, they will fire athletic director Mike Garrett after the penalties are announced. Keep in mind that these penalties being reported are only the ones against their football program. We haven't even heard about what the basketball penalties will be, if indeed there are any beyond the self-imposed ones.
Meanwhile, Orangebloods.com has been all over the conference realignment shakeup and they reported earlier in the day the end of the Big 12, with Nebraska informally agreeing to join the Big 10. The same report says Texas athletic director DeLoss Dodds and president William Powers told their staff that they attempted to save the Big 12 but failed, meaning Texas is likely on its way to an expanded Pac-10. Reports this morning are flying about the departure of other schools to the Pac-10. The San Jose Mercury News reports this morning that Colorado will formally accept an invite to the conference today. They also report that Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State are committed to joining the Pac-10 once Nebraska leaves the Big 12 (which could become official as early as today) and may join anyway. The Oklahohoman got the following quote from an unnamed but high-ranking Oklahoma official regarding the school's potential jump to the Pac-10: "Load up on your sunscreen."
So goodbye to the Big 12, goodbye to the USC dynasty, goodbye to Reggie Bush's Heisman Trophy (most likely) and goodbye to Jeremiah Masoli's college career.
What's that? Oh yes, upstaged by all of this news was word that Oregon has thrown the suspended star quarterback off the team after being cited of being in possession of marijuana. Fortunately for him and for an Oregon program that seems out of control right now, all the other stuff completely overshadowed this news.
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