It might be easier than you think for several years, the NCAA could hammer them. Personally, I'd like to see the death penalty.

So if Mike Riley is staying with OSU, who else is being seriously considered?

I talked with my U. of Tennessee buddy and he said Kiffin is staying, but I still think his name hasn't been scratched of USC's list.

According to KATU Channel 2 sports, a 6 year extension of the current contract...money wasn't mentioned, but I'm guessing it's more than the $1 million per year of the current contract.

As a fan of all teams out west, I would like to see Chris Petersen of Boise State step into the USC job. I would think any university would be thrilled to get someone like Jim Tressel of OSU as well. That guy is the class of NCAA Football. He is a winner on every level.

Mike

You forgot the SUVs and envelopes of cash, too.

Yo.

Petersen just signed up for five more years; I hope he stays.
Boise State is one of college football's success stories! Chris Petersen replaced Dan Hawkins, the first coach of the new era Broncos, who was extremely successful on the blue turf; Hawkins ran off to a lucrative payday in Colorado where he has had NO success at all. He'll probably be fired even though he has (x?) number of years left on his contract.

(edit - does anyone want the 'SC gig? Does it seem like everyone is turning it down, or is that my personal schadenfreude?)

Might be tough to attract a good candidate with NCAA sanctions looming in the horizon.

Leggo of AD Mike Garrett and the program might have a chance of gaining some respect.

Sherwood

Schools makes quite a bit off BCS bowl game appearances, as do the coaches. I think Sabin received $400,000 for winning the Nat'l Championship. :eek:

You know, an interesting stat for USC would be to compare how much money the football team has made against how much the film school has made. Between Speilberg, Carson, Lucas and the tens of millions they've pumped into the school, I wonder if it would be close.

Then there are those endowments. Two years ago USC received $25 million from a single donor -- and the school usually raises a half billion a year.

I dunno. Maybe Trojan football is just an ego thing. The real money lies with whomever has their name on an on-campus building.

How is it a scam if people/foundations wish to donate to a school?

It is a scam when team players are essentially pro athletes (i.e. paid with cash or equivalent). Their dismal graduation rate is an indication as well.

Sherwood

The university is NOT giving these punks any money, SUVs, cash, etc.

McNight is the latest one being investigated.
His girlfriend was loaned an SUV to drive by her employer to drive as part of her employment. A company vehicle.

It is rumored that SHE lent it to McNight to drive, he denies it. He claims he never drove it but just rode in it as a passenger when she was driving. Dunno if that's true or not.
The EMPLOYER is a Washington or Washington state fan IIRC, not a USC alumni or supporter.
Whhhooooooo, big controversy. Maybe we shuld just burn down the school!

These big name players are considered celebrities to some extent. Any time you get celebrities you get parasites, people who want to be part of the spotlight. Remember that most USC football games ends up on national TV. That's a big spotlight.
In So Cal there is a lot of money. Sometimes these people with too much money give gifts to players just to be part of the show, to be a friend of someone famous. That is wrong but it occasionally happens but not as often and the tin foil crowd like to pretend.
It is usually as innocent as that, it typically is not a big conspiracy. It has nothing to do with the university.

Sometimes you get a lowlife drug dealer or criminal that has money and wants more, so he loans a kid money with the expectation of getting it back and more after the kid goes pro. Like Reggie Bush allegedly.
Again, that is wrong and the kid and the bad guy are to blame, NOT THE SCHOOL. The school had nothing to do with it.

Punishing the school and all the other kids at that school who are not doing anything wrong is stupid.
A greedy kid does something he knows he shouldn't, and by the time it comes out he bails and goes to the NFL. It doesn't cost him anything.
But because of HIS irresponsibility, nutjobs come out of the woodwork and say "THEY NEED TO SCREW OVER THAT SCHOOL THAT I DON'T LIKE".
It often comes from people who went to a sheety school or are just being petty and jealous. They often exaggerate the truth and pretend like things are going on when they aren't and They know it. That is dishonest. To them I say get over yourself and your character flaws.

USC get's allot of attention and that can be good and bad. Lots of folks don't like USC because they are jealous of USC's success. That makes USC a target and they get a whole lot of scrutiny. Lots of little men hoping that USC gets in trouble so it can make them feel better about themselves. Those little men tend to cry fire when there isn't smoke.

If the school does something wrong, punish the school. Something like giving athletes good grades who can't read, like a Florida university admitted to recently. Or suspending a player for the entire year for a criminal act caught on television and then bringing him back to play as soon as the team has a shot at the rose bowl. That's chicken sheet and USC has more class that that, but Orey-gone doesn't obviously.

Don't be going around pretending like it's the school's fault and should be punished if they had nothing to do with something. that's BS.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1263309500.jpg

It's called "lack of institutional control." All schools have compliance departments which are supposed to make sure those things don't happen. That's what the NCAA investigation on USC has been all about. The school allows all of these lowlifes into the locker rooms, etc. Which helps with recruiting b/c players know all about it.

Ex:

An eight-month Yahoo! Sports investigation has revealed that Heisman Trophy-winning running back Reggie Bush and his family appear to have accepted financial benefits worth more than $100,000 from marketing agents while Bush was playing at the University of Southern California.

The benefits, which could lead to NCAA sanctions for USC and retroactively cost Bush his college eligibility and Heisman, were supplied by two groups attempting to woo Bush as a client. Current Bush marketing agent Mike Ornstein and one of Ornstein's employees were involved. So were Michael Michaels and Lloyd Lake, who attempted to launch an agency called New Era Sports & Entertainment, pursuing Bush as their first client.

Bush declined comment to Yahoo! Sports, and Ornstein denied any wrongdoing on his and Bush's behalf.

But documents and on-the-record interviews with sources close to the situation reveal that Bush and his family appear to have received financial benefits from Ornstein and a business associate. Those benefits include:

* $595.20 in round-trip airfare from San Diego to Oakland in November 2005 for Bush's stepfather, LaMar Griffin, his mother, Denise Griffin and younger brother to attend the USC-California game at Berkeley. The fees were charged to the credit card of Jamie Fritz, an employee of Ornstein. The document detailing the charges was provided by Lee Pfeifer, an estranged business associate of Ornstein's.
* $250.65 for limousine transportation from the Oakland airport to the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco that November weekend for the Bush family, charged to Fritz, according to a document. Ornstein acknowledged both he and Bush's family stayed at the luxury hotel.

Additionally, New Jersey memorabilia dealer Bob DeMartino alleges that Ornstein provided:

* Suits for Bush's stepfather and brother to wear during the Dec. 10, 2005 Heisman ceremony in New York, a makeover for his mother for the event and limousine transportation;
* Weekly payments of at least $1,500 to the Bush family.

Documents and multiple sources also link Bush and his family to receiving benefits from New Era's financial backers, including:

* $623.63 for a hotel stay by Bush at the Venetian Resort & Casino in Las Vegas from March 11-13, 2005, charged to Michaels, according to a document signed by Bush.
* $1,574.86 for a stay by Bush at the Manchester Hyatt in San Diego from March 4-6, 2005, paid for by Michaels, according to a hotel document, a hotel employee and a source.
* Approximately $13,000 to Bush from New Era to purchase and modify a car, three sources said.
* As reported by Yahoo! Sports in April, $54,000 in rent-free living for a year at Michaels' $757,500 home in Spring Valley, Calif., according to Michaels and San Diego attorney Brian Watkins.
* Also from previous Yahoo! reports, $28,000 from Michaels to help Bush's family settle pre-existing debt, according to Michaels and Watkins.
* Thousands of dollars in spending money to both Bush and his family from the prospective agents, according to multiple sources.

Approached about the financial ties on Sept. 7, Bush politely dismissed a Yahoo! Sports reporter.

"I don't want to talk about it," he said, three days before making his NFL debut with the New Orleans Saints last Sunday.

Meanwhile, Ornstein denied giving Bush or his family benefits, calling the accusation of cash payments a lie. Ornstein described travel arrangements made by Fritz as loans that were paid back by the Bush family.

"Reggie Bush never received an extra benefit from Mike Ornstein other than what he was allowed to get from the NCAA when he worked with us," Ornstein said, referring to the fact that Bush was an intern at Ornstein's marketing company in the summer of 2005. "I feel pretty damn good about that.''

Asked why his employee, Fritz, had paid for airfare and a limousine for the Bush family's trip to the Cal game, Ornstein said he believed the funds were paid back.

"Jamie may have paid or put it on his credit card," Ornstein said. "I don't think (Reggie's) parents have a credit card, but his parents paid for everything."

Fritz declined comment, but documents obtained by Yahoo! Sports indicate both the airfare and limousine rental for the trip to the Bay Area were paid in full on Fritz's American Express card prior to the trip being taken. Ornstein also used the card in August to book his own trip to Bush's NFL preseason debut against the Tennessee Titans.

The card establishes a direct link between Bush's family and Ornstein's office while Bush was still at USC, but Ornstein insisted it was merely a matter of helping the family.

"If the dad asked, then maybe (Jamie helped)," he said. "The (family) went on other trips. I'm sure the father – if it was anything that needed a credit card to guarantee the hotel and everything – then I'm sure Jamie will have documentation and cash receipts from the father. I guarantee it."

Asked whether he was aware that such loans could constitute an NCAA violation, Ornstein replied: "I have no idea."

NCAA by-law 12.3.1.2 states that an athlete shall be deemed ineligible if he or she accepts benefits from agents or marketing representatives. The rule further states that student-athletes, their family or friends cannot receive benefits or loans from agents. Additionally, NCAA by-law 12.1.2.1.6 states that athletes cannot receive preferential treatment, benefits or services because of the individual's athletics reputation or skill or pay-back potential as a professional athlete, unless such treatment, benefits or services are specifically permitted under NCAA legislation.

The NCAA launched an investigation into Bush's eligibility in April after Yahoo! Sports reported that Bush's family had not paid rent after living for a year in a home owned by Michaels. A Pac-10 investigation followed.

If the NCAA rules that Bush received extra benefits during his playing career at USC, he could be ruled retroactively ineligible. Since some of the benefits date back to the 2004 season, the Trojans' national championship that season could be rescinded. USC could face further NCAA sanctions and Bush's 2005 Heisman Trophy could be in jeopardy. The Heisman ballot indicates that an athlete must meet NCAA eligibility requirements to be considered for college football's most prestigious award.

Yahoo! Sports was denied a request last week to interview USC coach Pete Carroll, running backs coach Todd McNair and athletic director Mike Garrett.

The university instead released a statement though its counsel.

"USC cannot comment on any matter that is the subject of an ongoing NCAA and Pac-10 investigation," university counsel Kelly Bendell said. "USC continues to cooperate fully with the investigation."

Citing policy of not discussing ongoing investigations, NCAA officials initially declined to comment on the Bush matter.

But Friday, in the wake of the Yahoo! Sports report, an NCAA spokesperson said, "Now that certain individuals have spoken publicly, we hope they will now speak with the NCAA."

Following the Trojans' loss to the University of Texas in the national championship game in January 2006, Bush turned professional. He hired Ornstein as his marketing agent, leaving a string of spurned would-be business representatives who claim Bush and his family owes them money. In April, Bush was drafted second overall by the Saints and he later signed a six-year contract guaranteeing him $26.3 million. Ornstein has since helped arrange marketing deals for Bush worth approximately $50 million.

The potential problem for USC goes beyond the trail of money to Bush. The Trojan program could be found by the NCAA to have failed to exert proper institutional control.

Sources told Yahoo! Sports that representatives of New Era were allowed into the USC locker room during the 2005 season. Ornstein and other agents frequented the USC sidelines during several games and numerous practices that season, according to published reports.

After almost four years of investigation, the NCAA’s probe into the University of Southern California athletic program has reached a conclusion. Sources familiar with the investigation have told Yahoo! Sports that the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions will meet Feb. 19-21 to address what investigators uncovered at USC. According to typical NCAA procedures, if sanctions are necessary, they will be determined and then made public via a news conference within six to eight weeks of the February hearing.

NCAA spokeswoman Stacey Osburn declined comment. The NCAA’s website indicates the next meeting of the Committee on Infractions will occur Feb. 19-21 in Tempe, Ariz.

Neither USC nor Pac-10 officials could be immediately reached for comment.

The meeting will be the apex in the NCAA’s probe into USC’s athletic program, as it represents the first determination on whether sanctions should be leveled against the school. The determination on a hearing date also indicates USC has received a letter of allegations from the NCAA and that the school has responded in some way. According to NCAA procedures, schools informed of infractions have at least 90 days to respond. After the response period has expired, a case summary is completed and a date is set for the Committee on Infractions to meet and determine whether there is a basis for sanctioning.

The NCAA’s investigation of USC has been ongoing since April 2006, when a series of Yahoo! Sports reports detailed allegations of extra benefits given to running back Reggie Bush and his family by a failed sports marketing company. Since then, the probe has come to encompass former Trojans basketball star O.J. Mayo and the men’s basketball program, after a report by ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” detailed benefits that allegedly had been funneled to Mayo. Former Trojans basketball coach Tim Floyd abruptly resigned after a Yahoo! Sports report detailed an alleged $1,000 cash payment from Floyd to a man who had helped steer Mayo to USC. The investigation is believed to also include Trojans running back Joe McKnight, whose use of a 2006 Land Rover and ties to a marketing entrepreneur in Santa Monica also have come under scrutiny after a recent report in the Los Angeles Times.

Recent developments at USC, including its decision to self-sanction its basketball program, appear to have occurred after the Trojans received the NCAA’s letter of allegations. News of the hearing also indicates that former Trojans football coach Pete Carroll has been aware for weeks of the specific violations the NCAA may be alleging against his program. Carroll resigned as USC football coach on Sunday and has been named coach of the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks.

The NCAA probe has stretched beyond individual athletes, widening its focus to USC’s control of its sports programs, as well as various aspects of compliance and oversight, according to sources. It is expected to make conclusions on USC’s institutional control and whether the school had the proper checks and balances in place to oversee its athletes.

USC already sanctioned itself for NCAA violations during the 2007-08 season related to Mayo allegedly having accepted benefits from known sports agency runner Rodney Guillory. The penalties levied by USC included a ban on postseason play, a reduction of scholarships, recruiting restrictions and the vacation of all victories from the 2007-08 season. Both Mayo, through his agent, and Floyd have denied wrongdoing.

OK, what did Pete Carroll do that he shouldn't? What rules did he break? You insinuated it.

Carroll’s legacy TBD

By Dan Wetzel

So Pete Carroll has reportedly resigned and appears headed back to the NFL, this time with Seattle. What he left behind at Southern California is anyone’s guess.

There will be memories of his exuberant personality, joyfully pacing the sidelines during nine dominant seasons. And there will be questions about how he accomplished it.

Sources with knowledge of the situation say the NCAA is in the final stages of what has become a two-sport, department-wide investigation into USC athletics. A source told Yahoo! Sports that Reggie Bush voluntarily met with NCAA investigators last summer to discuss allegations of receiving extra benefits from marketing representatives.

The NCAA is expected to finalize its investigation in the next couple of months, if not sooner.

Details in the case date back to 2004, when Bush allegedly began receiving cash, clothes, cars, travel and a rent-free home for his mother and stepfather from marketing companies. The case could run through last month’s revelation that Joe McKnight (“the next Reggie Bush”) was driving a SUV registered to an L.A.-area businessman. It also includes agent activity surrounding former basketball star O.J. Mayo that led to the resignation of coach Tim Floyd and the school sanctioning itself last month.

If the NCAA declares Bush retroactively ineligible for the 2004 season, the Bowl Championship Series has said it will consider stripping the Trojans of their lone BCS title during Carroll’s era.

By the end, who knows what will be left.

Carroll never has publicly offered detailed answers to myriad questions that surround how the program handled its off-field business. Whatever, if anything, he’s told the NCAA thus far may be his final comment – as the Seahawks coach he no longer is obligated to speak to investigators.

At issue aren’t just specific details about Carroll’s knowledge of various dealings but the overall personality of his program.

There’s no denying Carroll ran a loose ship. At its best it perfectly represented his fun-loving ways and the laid-back L.A. lifestyle. At its worst it opened the program up to all sorts of trouble.

There were celebs on the sidelines, practices open to nearly anyone, and agents and runners rummaging around Heritage Hall like perhaps no place else in college football. The compliance department appeared to be compliant to the wishes of the football program. And it was all headed by a bumbling, if image-conscious, athletic director in Mike Garrett.

In each of the investigations, the NCAA will ask not just whether a coach (or his assistants) knew about agent or booster activity with a player but also whether he or they should’ve known.

Troubling for USC is that the people who allegedly – or in some cases admittedly – supplied Bush and his family with extra benefits weren’t anonymous to the program.

Two founders of a fledgling San Diego marketing company were given postgame locker room access at the L.A. Coliseum, and one, Lloyd Lake, said USC assistant coach Todd McNair had knowledge of the benefits received by Bush.

Another marketing company that was alleged to have made direct payments to the player and admitted providing travel for Bush and his parents (its claim of restitution doesn’t make it any less of a NCAA violation) actually employed Bush as a summer intern. They did it only after filing paperwork with the USC compliance office.

This means that in the months before his Heisman Trophy season, not one person at USC, let alone Carroll, considered that it might be risky to have a potential top-five pick spend the summer interning at a marketing company desperate to sign him as a client?

In the post-Bush era, the school doesn’t appear all that more diligent. When McKnight registered a SUV with the athletic department during his junior season, red flags apparently didn’t fly. The Los Angeles Times quickly figured out that the car was registered to a local businessman who also employed McKnight’s girlfriend and had secured a web domain that could be used to market McKnight. USC either didn’t check or didn’t act on it.

How isn’t all of this a lack of institutional control?

And how couldn’t Pete Carroll be aware of at least some of it? Can all of it be brushed off as a coincidence?

The perception is that the NCAA has been standing around doing nothing on this case as part of a conspiracy to sweep it under the rug. While its long history of selective enforcement creates reasonable doubt about its motives regarding a cash cow such as USC, in this situation I’m inclined, at least partially, to believe the opposite.

The Trojans represent a must-get for the NCAA, a case that is so over-the-top, so well-publicized and so blatantly against the most obvious of rules that it can’t allow the Trojans to escape without losing all credibility and dealing with an avalanche of national criticism. Many in college athletics wonder that if the NCAA can’t get USC, what’s the point of the operation?

Part of it is jealousy of the juggernaut Carroll built. Part of it is because of the huge financial numbers, the documents, taped conversations and a tell-all book. Part of it is because Bush hasn’t helped his cause. That includes paying a reported $300,000 to Michael Michaels, the man who owned the rent-free home, in a settlement that included an unusual clause that prohibited Michaels from speaking with the NCAA.

All of this is why the NCAA has been so slow and cautious. Here’s how the system works: The NCAA enforcement staff (the cops) get one chance to present their findings to the infractions committee (the jury). That jury has built a recent reputation for turning a blind eye on even obvious violations, in part because it’s mostly made up of sympathetic athletic directors.

In the Bush case, the enforcement staff patiently has waited for all the possible facts to come out. This includes Bush’s potential under oath testimony in a lawsuit filed by Lake. If the NCAA acted swiftly, it would’ve missed out on speaking with Bush (or getting sworn testimony) and thus presented a weaker case to the jury.

In this situation, the delay actually was a sign of serious intent. It’s trying to deliver a thorough case to a jury that knows college sports’ credibility is on the line.

While some of that may not be fair to USC, and Carroll’s Trojans may have done nothing that dozens of their competitors also have not done, the stonewalling, gag-order settlements and circumstances have helped make this what it is.

USC was able to delay things through the years, but doing so may not have helped its cause in the long run.

Now Pete Carroll is all but gone, but the questions remain and his legacy isn’t close to determined.

Probably none, but it smacks of a rat deserting a sinking ship.

Perception. Allegations.

Now, as devils advocate, Paul Allen has very deep pockets, who knows what kind of offer PC got - might be pretty tempting to have, say, the use of one of the worlds largest yachts; but if I had what Carroll had in his glory days, I would be very hard pressed to give it up to go try to turn around a dog like Seattle.

Lets face it, Sammy, you write pages about what a paradise USC is, why in the world would anyone leave Xanadu to work in some rainy outpost? He weighed his options and is leaving.

Maybe one more reason Carroll hightailed it to Seattle...

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/football/ncaa/01/11/usc.watson/index.html

Like I said.
You didn't post anything I didn't already, except for a basketball player I don't care about. I'm not gonig to comment on that because i have't followed it. i don't care about college ghetto ball.
The only allegations against USC football or Pete Carrol is that one football player drove an SUV once or twice that didn't belong to him, and one player's estranged father took money from a crook and USC, and USC didn't catch it or prevent it.

Like I said, blame the player, not the school.
If you were a football coach and a player on your team held up a liquor store with a gun, would that be your fault or the fault of the school?
(OK, maybe if you were a coach at LSU because you should have expected that kind of thing from an LSU player).

Maybe the university should hire a small army of private investigators to follow each and every player 24 hours a day and also each player's girlfriends and mothers and brothers and fathers, including wire taps and monitoring all bank accounts and loans and mortgages and everythnig else. Yep, that makes sense.

BTW it is alleged that reggie Bush's estraged FATHER was the one that broke the rules and asked for money, and Reggie didn't even have contact with his father because the old man bailed on his kids and Reggie didn't know anything about ther deal his estranged father made.

Yep, according to you the university should have kept tabs on his every move too, even though the guy had nothing to do with the player except the had the same last name. You see how silly this is?

This kind of crap goes on at every single large university that has a decent athletic program,

Oh, you don't want to hear all the details? You just want to point fingers and blame a school you don't like and hope it gets punished? I see, it's all becoming clear now.

We'll all hear all the details soon, that's what the multiyear investigation was for.

And I don't dislike USC. I do have an objective view on the school as an academic institution, though. And many of its fanboys do get annoying.