It's Only Rock and Roll But I Like It

The college football world has been rocked lately by cataclysms of its own. Megabucks conference mergers have dominated the news, and recently the hated cheaters from USC were caught with their hand in the money slot of the ATM machine and slapped with a two-year ban on bowl games and the loss of ten scholarships over the next three years. An investigating committee found that Trojan stars like Heisman trophy winner Reggie Bush and basketball star O.J. Mayo were given a fortune in fabulous illegal benefits, up to and including homes, cash, and cars.

ESPN reports that the NCAA has clarified their initial ruling: USC’s juniors and seniors can transfer to other schools without sitting out a year.

http://sports.espn.go.com/los-angeles/ncf/news/story?id=5275644
Of course, as Rob Moseley of the Eugene Register-Guard has pointed out, the Trojans are appealing the penalties.

This news is a shame in one way because the Oregon schools were doing a good job of eroding USC’s dominance on the field over the last few years. The Ducks have played the Trojans heads-up for quite a while, starting with a Saturday night they smashed Carson Palmer in the mouth and sent him home in a sling.

There’s no doubt the sanctions will significantly impact the football ecosystem for several years. It will take years to clean up the sticky tarballs of lost revenue, forfeited scholarships and dwindling interest and attendance. Mike Garrett’s office will be spewing bad news at an alarming rate, and the likelihood is that before long it will no longer be Mike Garrett’s office.

But I whistled a little tune of relief when I read one line of the sad story of Masoli’s recent arrest and dismissal. At least the car he was driving was a 1999 Cadillac, and not some brand new Escalade from a mysterious source…

I’m not naive enough to think extra benefits don’t exist in Eugene and all over the world of college sports. I had a high school friend who was a reserve on Boise State’s basketball team thirty years ago and even then, as a minor player on a minor team, he got a free apartment and enough money for Big Macs and the gas to go home at Christmas. It happens everywhere, I’m certain, but not on the scale of palatial family homes and grocery sacks full of cash that came to light in La-La Land. I’m just relieved our overzealous boosters have kept things reasonably discreet. Joey Harrington famously drove a decrepit Toyota, for instance.

What happened to the Cardinal and Gold is a cautionary tale. Everybody does it. The famous saying is, “If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying.” The critical thing is to keep the cheating to a manageable level, to stay on the side of the NCAA’s blind eye and out of sight of their watchful eye. The Trojans got too big and too flashy. Someone was bound to notice. They should have played that stupid fight song in a minor key, and left the horse and the fancy car at home.

If the Ducks could filch a fast wide receiver and an extra defensive tackle out of Lane Kiffin’s misfortune, so much the better. But I'm not myopic enough to think that in five or ten years or so it won’t be our turn.