The USC athletic department released new guidelines for admittance to USC football practice, limiting guests to a select group of people only allowed to attend practice if they submit requests 24 hours in advance.
Then, in a move so incredibly obvious it begs the question why they didn’t have this rule in place before today, they announced the following restrictions:
“Among those not permitted access to practice are agents (such as athlete agents, marketing agents or financial advisors to athletes) or their employees, representatives or affiliates.”
Bravo, Mike Garrett. It only took you until your football program had one of the longest, most contentious, and possibly damaging hearings in NCAA history before you rolled out a rule that should’ve been instituted long ago. Why would agents -- athletic, marketing, or any kind -- be allowed to wander the sidelines of college football practices that in the past allowed visitors to have direct contact with amateur student athletes?
Pete Carroll’s open door practice policy was certainly one of the more unique ones in college football. But the fact that it took until now to put in writing some of the more common sense rules that protect student athletes and the football program shows that either the athletic department was asleep at the wheel, or simply had their head in the sand.