Two days ahead of their appearance in front of the NCAA’s Infractions Appeals Committee, the head honcho of USC athletics doesn’t appear to be holding his breath in anticipation of good news.
The Trojans football program was hit with near-historic sanctions last June after the NCAA ruled Reggie Bush and his family had received impermissible benefits, as well as having the dreaded “lack of institutional control” slapped on the program. The most damaging of the sanctions were the two-year bowl ban — one of which has already been served — and the reduction of scholarships by 30 over a three-year period. USC will be asking the appeals committee that the bowl ban be reduced to time served and the scholarship loss cut in half to 15.
For his part, though, athletic director Pat Haden will not be going into the hearing Saturday with his eyes closed to the reality of the situation.
“I’m just realistic,” Haden said when asked by the Los Angeles Daily News about the chances for a reduction. “Ten percent of appeals are successful. Those are the odds we face.”
As noted by the Daily News, the recent odds are actually slightly worse; of the past 11 cases heard by the NCAA, 10 of them were upheld on appeal.
In addition to Haden, USC heavyweights such as vice president for athletic compliance David Roberts, associate athletic director J.K. McKay and university president Max Nikias, as well as a bevy of lawyers, will represent the school at the hearing. One person who won’t be there is the one most directly impacted by the sanctions.
“I’ve done enough time,” head coach Lane Kiffin said. “I have nothing to do with (the hearing). We can’t control it so we don’t worry about it.”
A decision on USC’s appeal is not expected until well after National Signing Day Feb. 2, which means Kiffin could be forced to deal with a reduction of 10 scholarships — give or take a couple/few, depending on how they want to “arrange” their losses — for his 2011 class. His only hope is that, with a successful appeal, this will be the only recruiting class to be hit with such a scholarship loss.
Much like his boss, though, he probably shouldn’t hold his breath.
I still don’t get why if Reggie’s family got benefits, and Cam Newton’s Father got benefits, and the OSU players got benefits, Why didn’t OSU and Auburn get similar penalties? Could USC use that to their advantage?
The loss of scholarships may prove to be more damaging than many have suspected. If the penalty remains at 30 scholarships lost, attrition will begin to take its toll on the USC football team.
USC, under Pete Carroll, averaged 20 scholarships per year and this is more like a 5 scholarship penalty and the worst is over for the program because they have a top flight class coming in and the bowl restrictions go away next year.
What a joke you people are. You do realize — sorry, I give you too much credit — that they have 25 commits that are 3 – 5 star, 8 – 4 star and 9 – 3 star, don’t you? ESPN rates their class #4 while Scouts rates it #6 and that’s with the fact that they have ONLY 15 scholarships to give up and the class knows that and this class includes what many feel is Barkley’s successor, Max Wittek. 4 of the commits are from JC (2 – OL, 1 – MLB and 1 – S) to help on both sides of the ball.
Edgy,
Most of the chatter I hear is about Kessler not Wittek. Maybe its because Kessler attended camps while Wittek’s coming out party was the UA game. Either way good problem to have both kids look awesome.
Anyway love the class Kiffin is bringing in and its sounds like Marquise Lee is heading to USC. Its hard to believe Lee, Farmer and Woods were all receivers on the same high school team. Farmer and Woods were the top two rated receivers in back to back years.
Edgy,
30 scholarships is a lot to loose in this competitive landscape. USC better not have significant injuries to any of their 1st 2 strings or they will have serious depth problems.
It’s a long grueling season of highly competitive play in the PAC 10. You must have depth on the roster to compete for a title.
Just my opinion
soflatrojan says:
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Remember all the doom and gloom talk from the haters at the beginning of the season. It seems that they can’t deal with the realities. Not only has the flight from Troy not being as severe as they said but the recruits are still willing to show up to play for them.
Edgy,
1. New facilities on the way. Imagine if PC would have had that when he was recruiting.
2. Only football team in one of the biggest markets in the USA. Sorry UCLA you don’t count.
3. One of the top rated colleges in the country.
4. History of putting guys in the NFL
5. One of the historic programs in CFB
6. Great looking women.
7. If not the best one of the best coaching staffs when it comes to recruiting. This is why I thought LK was the right choice to get USC through the sanctions.
The scholarships losses are going to affect the depth. Last year USC was only traveling with 53 guys do to injuries and low scholarship numbers and that was without sanctions. USC is so expensive they don’t get a lot of non scholarship athletes. The best thing that happened is the delay in the appeal is going to allow USC to sign a full class.
We will see what happens I think Kiffin & Co will keep USC competitive and then lookout when the sanctions are over.
Either way we have some exciting players on the team and coming in this year.
I’ll say it again: USC under Pete hardly ever gave a full load of scholarships out. This is a class of what is 25 (and that’s not counting Lee) that knows that they don’t all have chances for scholarships. Knowing all that, if some of them didn’t plan on paying for their school this year then they’re making a big mistake sticking around because scholarship offers are either gone or soon to be gone at their second or third schools of choice.
Let’s not forget that last year was a lot different: incoming players and others were given an option to leave with no penalty and several who were falling on the depth chart took the opportunity to do so and one of their stud freshmen went off to Miami. By the time it was all over, there was nothing that the school could do to restock the depth. The school has pretty dealt with their NFL jumps and guys who are stuck behind someone else and they’ve got 4 JC guys who may even find a way to pay their way for a year or two for the chance to upgrade their NFL stock. If Kiffin can convince a few more of those a year then he can save his scholarships for guys who will be there for 3 years and build up depth and in 4 years, they’re back up to speed.
USC should have received the same penalties as SMU did back in the 80′s
Edgy,
I could see USC contending again in 4 years. What is truly working in USC’s favor is that no other PAC 10 school is close to having strong recruiting classes. With a little “injury luck” (lack there of) USC could be a contender sooner than 4 years – we will see. They certainly have one of the finest coaching staffs in the country.
roll tide
WingT, I’m talking about NC contention NOT the Pac-12. As I told Blitz, I’d be happy if they won 14 games in 2010 and 2011 and now, I’ll up that by 2 because I think that 8-4 is easy, even with the problems that they have with depth NOW and I think that they’re more likely to go 9-3. Their defense will be better next year and I think that if Barkley does go down for a game or two, his backups can’t do much worse than what Mustain did.
Their division was severely weakened by the northern schools insistence on having a trip to Cal every year that led to them moving Cal and Stanford out of their natural division. Even with their problems last year, they beat Arizona, Arizona State and UCLA and I don’t think that they’ll lose to Colorado, even if it’s in Boulder or Utah because it’s at home (but it is an early game so you never know). I can see them go 2-2 against the North, so that gives them a 7-2 mark in conference. I see wins against Minnesota and Syracuse and if Barkley is healthy, Notre Dame but if he’s not, that’s why they could go 9-3 or 8-4, if Utah can get to them early in the season.