Since you guys insist on continuing this thread, I will note (for probably the third time over the last many years...I've lost count) why I have limited sympathy for USC in the Reggie Bush matter. Not zero sympathy, but it is limited. As SC is always quick to point out, the NCAA had an axe to grind. But USC's pinhead AD did everything he could to sharpen that axe, so in my mind it was mutual, or at the least self induced. And there were charges for which any credible court would probably have held that the evidence was circumstantial, and no conviction would have been forthcoming. Hard to argue that, especially the Bush's house and how it was paid for. But Pete Carroll was HC, and was therefore nominally in charge of football. Reggie parked his luxury vehicle adjacent to the practice field. Pete knew it was there, knew that neither Reggie nor his family could have bought it, and must personally have approved its parking place, or every player on the team would have been parking there. I saw it, and I was just a visitor, so you know that half of the campus knew about it. So there was cheating and "incentives" happening. The only disagreement of which I'm aware is over the level of proof for some of the allegations and whether, in light of the lack of hard proof (particularly regarding the Bush's house), the penalty was appropriate. I'll agree with SC that if you believe in innocence unless proven guilty, the penalty was too severe. Because there was no hard proof for some of the allegations. The circumstantial evidence was pretty damning, but by definition, circumstantial is not hard proof. As others have noted, my biggest problem with the NCAA is its lack of consistency, which I personally view as being due to both incompetence and bias. And the possibility of mercy for Penn State, when the magnitude of the wrong doing and responsibility is so clearly light years beyond USC is just the latest poster child for how the NCAA's crock of justice operates.
The USC penalty was too severe. But it didn't happen in a vacuum, and USC was cheating. With a less arrogant AD, they might even have gotten away with it.
