Pat Haden was hoping for a quick turnaround by the NCAA on his request to have his football program’s sanctions reviewed/reduced. While the athletic director received the expediency for which he was looking, he didn’t get the response he would’ve preferred.
Saying "[t]here is no comparison between USC and Penn State,” the NCAA announced Friday that it has denied the former’s appeal, adding that there will be “no further consideration given” to the school in regards to its sanctions.
The NCAA had announced Tuesday that it would, beginning next year, be restoring some of the scholarships Penn State had lost as a result of sanctions stemming from the Jerry Sandusky scandal. Haden, who had a previously-scheduled meeting with the NCAA on unrelated matters, used the opportunity to request that scholarship restrictions on his Trojans football team -- which end this year -- be eased or some redress be given to the program.
In a statement posted on one of the school’s official websites Thursday, Haden described ‘“outside the box’ solutions to the scholarship issues resulting from the injuries and transfers experienced by our football team over the past three seasons.” It was never specified what Haden had proposed to the NCAA.
While the Trojans’ full allotment of 25 scholarships will be restored for the 2014 recruiting class -- they had been stripped of 10 annually from 2011-13 -- they will still be limited to 75 instead of the normal 85 scholarship players next year. More than likely, that was the area in which Haden was seeking some type of relief.
In 2015, USC will be permitted to get back to the 85-scholarship limit.