I would agree with you IF USC and the Pac-10 didn't sign an agreement noting they were playing under the rules of the BCS and that whoever the BCS crowned would be the champion. You can't agree to be held under those standards and then say you still are the champ when you don't get picked.They only won one BCS national championship, but anyone who says they only won one national championship has been following college football for about 5 minutes. To bring you up to speed- college football has been around for over 100 years, and agencies have been awarding national championships for almost as long. In any year where two different agencies award national championships to two different teams, both teams are considered "national champions", which is why in 1997 both Lloyd Carr and Tom Osbourne won a national championship. It's not like only one of those counted. Michigan is credited with the championship, and so is Nebraska. The championship went on Carr's resume, and it went on Osbourne's. If every agency awards its national championship to the same team, then it is a "consensus national champion".USC only has one CONSENSUS national championship... but they have two national championships. And anyone who claims otherwise is ignoring almost 100 years of college football history and precedent. Just because one agency awards its championship a certain way (creating the game and naming the winner) doesn't mean that every other agency is forced to follow in lock-step. The AP can continue awarding national championships the same way it has for the last 64 years, and they count just as much as they have every season for the last 64 years.
I think the whole "money is eroding the integrity of college sports" nonsense is hogwash and poppycock. College players are essentially unpaid interns. Having worked as both an unpaid intern and a paid intern, I can honestly say that I didn't feel like the integrity of my internship was eroded because I was making $10 an hour. And I guarantee you that I was nowhere near as valuable to my employer in terms of revenue generated as college football players are to their employers.
Totally agree. And this comes as no surprise to me and I suspect is just tip of the iceberg. I am glad USC is being slapped because cheating has no place in college sports. Period. And unless there are harsh penalties the money will continue to erode the integrity of college sports.
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NCAA rules on Reggie Bush case (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter SSOG
- Start date
massraider
Footballguy
I shudder to think how close this probably is.But CalBear's explanation made sense.
Raiderfan32904
Footballguy
It's really a highly likely probability. In truth, these organizations are lined with people who follow Gov't guidance on rule-making. Once a set of data has gone past a set window period, all data is locked. It's how the GAO (Gov't Acct. Office) works. There is a ton of incorrect data that is proliferated to the public and later recognized as incorrect, but the data at some point is set in stone. Then officials act on incorrect data to make decisions, knowing full well assumptions are wrong. It's how it's done, and it's not right. But it's reality. I doubt that anything back to 2005 gets changed, but a 2009 honoree can easily be revoked.
Team ROFLCOPTERS
Footballguy
I'm not discussing the basketball program.In regards to Bush and family taking monies, I just think saying USC itself is cheating is a bit harsh. Cheating is creating an on field advantage or manipulating the recruiting rules. If anything USC is responsible for is allowing it to go on .... allegedly. The thing is, there isn't a shred of proof of USC knowing anything and despite knowing what we know now, there still is no proof that Bush accepted kick backs. He still denies it despite settling.
I personally am not naive and I truely believe Carroll and company had a great deal of knowlege, but no team turns their player in. None. I just don't think the amount of punishment handed out fits. It's unprecedented and it's strictly based off a great deal of suspicion.
I appreciate the dialogue guys. Very interesting topic.
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GregR_2
Footballguy
So much for the AP being consistent after the Brian Cushing revote. Or maybe we should chalk it up to NFL defensive ROY being SO much more important than a college football national championship.
SSOG
Moderator
Or chalk it up to the NFL being completely different than the NCAA. The NFL thrives because there's always a clear answer. New England wasn't the best team in 2001, but dammit, they're the champions and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Have you ever seen two NFL teams list different win/loss totals against each other in their official media guides? Of course not- every game has a winner and a loser. On the other hand, Florida and Georgia are still arguing about the outcome of a game that happened more than 100 years ago. How many national championships a school has depends very much on who you ask. In the end, college football survives and even thrives on controversy. One of the best parts is that the book is never closed on a season. So much is open to debate that people will still be discussing something that was old news years ago. Case in point: USC's National Championship.GregR said:
Cheating is creating an on-field advantage by some method that is against the rules. USC put the Heisman Trophy winner on the field (creating an on-field advantage) despite the fact that he was not an amateur (which is against the rules). I don't see how that doesn't qualify as "cheating".Now, I suppose that you could use the ignorance defense... but ignorance is no defense in this case. Schools have a compliance office whose sole job is to make sure that they are compliant- if you're ignorant of a situation, then you're not doing your job. If it's true that Reggie Bush was interning for an NFL agent, then there's no way in hell that USC's compliance office shouldn't have been on super-triple-extra-heightened alert to the risk. Either they were and they let him play anyway... or they weren't, and they were guilty of gross negligence. Imagine if an NFL owner spent $30 million over the cap and when confronted by the NFL simply said "oh, I'm sorry, my cap department just wasn't doing their job and so I had no idea that I was $30 million over the cap". You think that excuse would fly with Roger Goodell? And if not, why should "Oh, I'm sorry, my compliance department just wasn't doing their job and so I had no idea that our star football player who was interning for an NFL agent accepted over $100,000 in benefits from that agent"?Team ROFLCOPTERS said:
Team ROFLCOPTERS
Footballguy
Good post. I'll concede that having a heisman trophy winner on the field when he shouldn't be allowed is an advantage. My thing is that the punishment doesn't fit the crime. There has been countless cases of things like this happening and they were all just swats on the wrist. As I've said throughout this thread that the NCAA did extensive research and they still never came up with proof. All they had is an agency in essence tattling without providing any documentation and Bush settling on a dollar amount. Bush still denies it. Did he do it? No doubt. But to cripple a team with the deadliest punishment in the history of college football under all of these circumstances is simply unfair and hypocritical.
massraider
Footballguy
That's a good observation, but if we are really looking for the reason why the AP wouldn't be consistent on this sort of thing, do you really think it may be because the AP has decided that the controversy is good for the NCAA?
SSOG
Moderator
First and most importantly, this is hardly the deadliest punishment in the history of college football. It's not even close. Second off, this penalty is hardly the unprecedented injustice that you make it out to be. Alabama has been banned from the postseason and has faced scholarship reductions twice in the last 15 years. The University of Florida spent much of the '80s and early '90s banned from the postseason. Postseason bans and scholarship reductions are the usual punishment for paying players under the table. I will agree that the penalties came down too disproportionately on the side of football (when the basketball violations were more egregious), but this is hardly an injustice on the order of Dez Bryant getting suspended for a season for NOT breaking a rule. It's pretty much par for the course. If players get paid, the NCAA is going to vacate wins, reduce scholarships, and/or apply a postseason ban, depending on what they perceive the severity of the infraction to be (and $100,000 is a pretty incredibly big infraction).
It might not be that they decided that it's good for the NCAA, it might just be that they feel less compelled to prevent it. If some season-ending ambiguity arises in the NFL, then they have to address it or no one will have any idea what to do. If some season-ending ambiguity arises in the NCAA, though... well, how is that different from every other year?
