CFN Blames Kiffin for USC Penalty

[Tiger Wench]

This made me chortle a bit...

Matt Zemek

The moral of this story is as old as the scriptures: When trouble looms, tell the truth. Spill the beans. Take the heat. Show contrition. Make good-faith efforts to repair what can be repaired. Ask forgiveness. The USC athletic program and AD Mike Garrett didn’t, and now they’re left to sift through the wreckage at Heritage Hall.

Was a two-year bowl ban (and the 20-plus scholarships lost) a punishment that fit the crime? No. A one-year bowl ban (with the scholly reductions) seemed much more reasonable. Academic fraud and other violations that strike at the core of amateur athletics – at least the idea of amateur athletics – were not part of the mix at USC. This was more a case of a few athletes, primarily Reggie Bush and O.J. Mayo (and to a lesser extent, Dwayne Jarrett) being paid and provided for during their USC careers. This kind of activity is almost surely going on at other big-name programs. Nevertheless, the atmosphere at USC did careen considerably out of control, and putting the clamps on one season represented a pretty fair penalty.

Two years, though, represents another level of book-throwing on the part of the NCAA. This is as severe a punishment as anyone could have expected; in all candor, it likely exceeded the consensus prediction. USC is likely to hemorrhage recruits because NCAA bylaws – as provided by The Bylaw Blog – give athletes more freedom of movement if a school’s period of bowl-game ineligibility is prolonged rather than limited.

Bylaw 13.1.1.3.3 says the following: “No release needed to contact SAs (student athletes) if school has postseason ban for the rest of their eligibility.” Bylaw 14.8.2 says this: “The COI (Committee on Infractions) can recommend a waiver to allow SAs to transfer and play immediately if ban is for the rest of their eligibility.”

As you can see, the reality of a two-year bowl ban would naturally have an exponentially greater (negative) effect than a one-year ban. It will possess far more reach than a one-year ban and change the minds of numerous USC football recruits. It’s impossible to think that a substantial player exodus WON’T occur now that the two-year bowl ban has been handed down. When one also considers that USC did self-impose a ban for the recently-concluded basketball postseason, the two-year bowl ban raises eyebrows. Fuller statements and explanations (at press time, late Wednesday night and early Thursday morning) have yet to emerge, but when details pour out on Thursday, it will be interesting to see what the NCAA came up with. It’s widely felt that this is a penalty commensurate with a view that there was a complete lack of institutional control at USC. It’s a little hard to believe that contention, given the difference Pete Carroll has made in the lives of his players. The program did fall victim to the siren son of success in a city that is intoxicated by glamour, and Carroll certainly wasn’t the vigilant steward he needed to be while agents and moneymen zeroed in on Bush and Jarrett. However, one recoils at the idea that USC was a runaway, renegade program on par with Southern Methodist in the 1980s. That’s a bit much, to say the least.

So, without knowing the fuller reasons the NCAA brought down the hammer on USC, I’ll offer this thought to frame the issue and create a foundation for further discussion as more information becomes available: The Lane Kiffin hire had a certain amount to do with this penalty. How much is unclear, but the move definitely figured into the NCAA’s organizational attitude and thought process.

Let’s recall what was happening in the life and career of Lane Kiffin when USC – having lost Pete Carroll (who knew what awaited him if he stayed on) – searched for its newest football coach. Kiffin had to bear the embarrassing reality of shrugging off an NCAA investigation at Tennessee. Monte Kiffin’s son wasn’t just casual about the notion of wrongdoing; he was flippant and even defiant about it all. Moreover, in the hours after Kiffin was named USC’s head coach, his uber-recruiter assistant, Ed Orgeron, made phone calls to Tennessee players telling them to enroll at USC instead. This was confirmed at a press conference in Kiffin’s (and Orgeron’s) first week on the job.

Surely, you don’t want to irritate or anger the NCAA, the organization that leveled a draconian and clearly excessive penalty against former Oklahoma State receiver Dez Bryant for telling a lie in an interview. Surely, you don’t want to wave the red flag and yell “TORO!” to the organization that’s trying to pull up anything and everything about your program. Surely, you don’t act in ways that show fierce institutional resistance to what the NCAA is trying to do. Surely, you compensate for the fact that Reggie Bush settled out of court and was not willing to speak to the NCAA in a direct and not-so-hostile setting.

USC did none of these things. That’s why this is a two-year bowl ban and not a one-year ban.

Had Bush (and Mr. Mayo) been willing to open themselves up to the NCAA, USC’s outlook would have improved. Had Lane Kiffin and Ed Orgeron not been incredibly stupid in their first few days as (reincarnated/returning) USC coaches, the Trojans wouldn’t have been hit as hard. Most importantly, if Mike Garrett had hired a squeaky-clean coach with impeccable credentials, it’s very hard to think that a two-year bowl bad still would have been levied against USC.

The Lane Kiffin hire was a big “F--- you!” from USC to the NCAA. Maybe the move felt good at the time. Today, as the reality of USC’s situation sinks in, it certainly seems that the NCAA responded to USC’s institutional emotionalism and ferocity with a severe and visceral overreaction of its own.

USC shouldn’t have gotten a two-year bowl ban. Then again, its hubris and defiance represented spectacularly tone-deaf actions, a collective display of emotionalism and arrogance which irritated the organization it should have tried to embrace. The past years ought to have been a time when USC accommodated the NCAA and said all the right things in its words and deeds. Because the Trojans – at least Mike Garrett and Lane Kiffin – didn’t follow that particular modus operandi, the NCAA was petty and vindictive enough to return the favor.

I can’t say this was fundamentally fair to USC. Then again, I can’t say USC has anyone but itself to blame. Hubris rhymes with witch… right, Lane Kiffin? Flapping your mouth at Tennessee and shrugging off the very notion of being investigated have certainly caught up with you at your newest coaching stop. Yes, Lane, this was the one job you always wanted, the one job which made a hasty nighttime getaway from Knoxville an acceptable act in your eyes.

How do you like the bed you’ve made at your old-new home?

Somewhere, two things have just happened:

1) Urban Meyer’s stress level has plummeted, given all the cleansing, good-chemical-releasing belly laughs the Florida coach is performing right about now;

2) A 13-year-old kid has revoked his stated commitment to play for Lane Kiffin when he becomes a college freshman in five years.

Yes, USC, the Lane Kiffin hire might have felt so cathartic and deliciously rebellious at the time. Methinks, though, that this steep and excessive price – this extreme and oversized punishment announced by the NCAA – is in many ways a result of that fateful coaching hire your athletic director made in early January.

Mike Garrett should say goodbye to the AD’s chair. USC is saying hello to a world of problems that – while perhaps not deserved in a strict legal or institutional sense – are nevertheless the product of runaway arrogance at Heritage Hall. Next time, be a good citizen, USC. Maybe that lesson will sink in as the enormity of this punishment becomes clear.

[djsimp]

Holy phukin cow, what happened to Bush being at fault? The Saints should trade him.

[Jumbo]

I would guess at least 10 players will transfer out.

[djsimp]

How many of Carroll's staff that was at USC in 04 returned with Kiffin? I can think of two.

[Lurking Tiger]

Holy phukin cow, what happened to Bush being at fault? The Saints should trade him.

Why should the Saints trade him ?

[GH2001]

Why should the Saints trade him ?

Overpaid, overrated and there are 27 RBs who are better.

[djsimp]

Why should the Saints trade him ?

That was sort of tongue-n-cheek but since you ask, see GH's response.

[Lurking Tiger]

That was sort of tongue-n-cheek but since you ask, see GH's response.

Not enough bandwidth for the double sarcasm to make it through ?

[djsimp]

Not enough bandwidth for the double sarcasm to make it through ?

working through a ground wire currently. i must chose my words wisely.

[JR4AU]

Overpaid, overrated and there are 27 RBs who are better.

Yep, the Heisman Winner is pretty much a situational back on the NFL.  Can't pound it between the tackles and stand up to the beating.

[jmar]

Yep, the Heisman Winner is pretty much a situational back on the NFL.  Can't pound it between the tackles and stand up to the beating.

USC 's all star recruits haven't fared well overall in the NFL in recent years.

[The Prowler]

Would this be the first time that Current HC and some assistant coaches actually stayed at their University after getting Nailed, and that there's a very real possibility that the current HC and some of the assistants "helped" with the violations?  I know that the RB Coach, one of the coaches that Kiffin hired/retained, has been named and has NCAA sanctions against his recruiting for a full year.  I'd bet that there are some UT fans still dancing in the street since the USC Sanctions came out.

[eagleair89]

Would this be the first time that Current HC and some assistant coaches actually stayed at their University after getting Nailed, and that there's a very real possibility that the current HC and some of the assistants "helped" with the violations?

If I understand your question as posed the answer is No.

Coach Jordan and all of his staff stayed after 1955-56 sanctions and Coach Barfield and his staff stayed after the 78-79 run in......later being relieved for multiple reasons but not necessarily the run in w/ the NCAA being one of those reasons.

There may be other examples but those two come directly to mind

 

[jmar]

Would this be the first time that Current HC and some assistant coaches actually stayed at their University after getting Nailed, and that there's a very real possibility that the current HC and some of the assistants "helped" with the violations?  I know that the RB Coach, one of the coaches that Kiffin hired/retained, has been named and has NCAA sanctions against his recruiting for a full year.  I'd bet that there are some UT fans still dancing in the street since the USC Sanctions came out.

"Fight on"   USC went 37-35 from 1996 thru 2001.    Not so mighty as one is led to believe.   And now!