There’s little doubt that a majority -- if not a vast majority -- of people thought/assumed USC would be slapped on the wrist when the NCAA’s report on their investigation into, among other things, the Reggie Bush “situation” was released.
You could count amongst that majority a good chunk of the USC football program, who were shocked, taken aback and stunned at the severity of the penalties -- two-year bowl ban, loss of 30 scholarships and four years probation.
Now, however, a Trojan-centric website has given some hope to the USC faithful that the appeal currently being put together by the school may not be just a wild shot in the dark.
Bryan Fisher and Dan Weber of USCFootball.com have done an outstanding job of combing through a copy of the Case Summary against USC, and have uncovered what appear to be several factual missteps on the part of the NCAA. In particular, the case against running backs coach Todd McNair, the website writes, “supports the USC claim of factual errors, misleading questions and uncorroborated evidence used by the organization’s enforcement staff.”
The relationship between McNair and Lloyd Lake -- one of the aspiring marketers/agents who reportedly gave Bush cash and prizes that ultimately totaled nearly $300,000 -- was at the heart of the NCAA’s case against USC, and the website pointed out several errors contained in the report, including...
“In questioning Lake, the enforcement staff misstated who made a 2-minute, 32-second phone call that the Committee said it relied on as proof McNair was told of the scheme. In questioning McNair, the staff incorrectly stated the year the phone call was made as happening in 2005. In all five mentions of the year in the questioning session, the phone call is said to have happened in January of 2005, not 2006, when it actually occurred.
“If this (mistake) did occur, then I couldn’t imagine they would not be jumping out of their seats about it,” said Tom Yeager, former Committee Chairman and Commissioner of the Colonial Athletic Association. “If it’s as clear as they’re trying to say, then there isn’t even a finding to be made against the client.
“The committee would have turned to the enforcement staff for an explanation. If they’re making a finding on a call that didn’t even occur, that’s strange credibility. I can’t see all eight of those guys missing that.”
Fisher and Weber lay out other parts of the report they consider to contain errors; you can read the entire report by clicking HERE.
Obviously, as USCFootball.com is a pro-USC website, the report should be taken with a few grains of salt; however, it’s compelling enough that whatever bias may be there is overwhelmed by the sheer amount of errors that, at least on the surface, appear to be contained in the NCAA’s report.
Will these errors give USC an upper hand in the appeals process? That remains to be seen, but, given the severity of the sanctions, it sure can’t hurt.
