Innocent, Yet Guilty?

Sorry for the lack of beef lately, I've had to take up an occupation to acquire the currency that supports my lavish lifestyle, and have therefore had little time to provide you, my audience, with the stories you deserve. Today, my beef is with the sanctions put on the USC football program today.

Today, the NCAA handed down what I consider an unfair punishment to USC, after it investigated into whether former USC Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush and his family took improper gifts during Bush's time at the school from 2003 to 2005. The punishment included a two-year postseason ban, a reduction of reportedly around 20 scholarships and a forfeiture of wins from at least the 2004 season.

Before today, no BCS conference football team had been banned from postseason play in seven years.

I feel that what Bush did and what USC seemed to allow him to do is unforgivable and should be severely punished, but why is the NCAA punishing players who weren't even involved in the matter. When Bush first began receiving benefits, most of the guys on this football team were only in middle school. When Bush began receiving benefits, USC head coach Lane Kiffin was then only the team's wide receivers coach. But you know who did play big parts in the program when Bush began receiving his benefits? Pete Carroll and Reggie Bush.

Sadly however, the NCAA is not powerful enough to do anything to Carroll and/or Bush, as since they are only a collegiate association, they really can only sanction those involved currently in collegiate athletics, which neither Carroll, who bolted for the NFL's Seattle Seahawks, when rumors began spreading about the Bush situation, nor Bush, who now plays for the Saints, currently have anything to do with.

I have a feeling however, that with a team like the Seahawks and Carroll's poor NFL track record (33-31 overall, with a couple of firings sprinkled in), and Bush's underperformance in the NFL so far, that both of them are getting and will continue to get the bad karma that they deserve.

Because of the fact that the NCAA can't do anything to punish Carroll or Bush, the only people to dump the punishment on are those currently involved with the USC football team, and with USC being such a top-notch program, the NCAA felt it needed to show the rest of the world, how no team can get away with violating NCAA rules.

But, punishing players that did nothing wrong is not the solution to the problem. These guys came to USC innocently, in hopes of winning a national championship, and now they are going to have to either suffer as a football player their whole four years, all because a player from five years ago broke NCAA rules.

The NCAA's best option is to only take the wins away from the years Bush played for USC, and taking no action against this year's team, or any future USC teams. I know that taking the wins away or not, people will probably remember more about the success that USC had during this period instead of the NCAA vacating its wins, but still, it's the only fair solution.

The postseason ban is bad enough alone, as the current players have nothing to play for, but the scholarship deduction is just as bad, because when the current underclassmen are seniors, and the postseason ban is finally gone, USC will still have a bad football team from their inability to recruit any good players the two years prior.

This isn't the current USC football team's fault. This is Reggie Bush's fault, Pete Carroll's fault the 2003 - 2005 USC athletic department's fault, and most importantly for this story, this is the NCAA's fault. The NCAA should have caught the Bush problem back when it was occuring and was actually relevant, instead of five years down the road. And since they didn't, then oh well, their fault, everyone moves on. Instead, the NCAA is doing the wrong thing again. First they didn't catch Bush and now they're punishing this year's players. I guess the NCAA doesn't know the saying, two wrongs don't make a right.

I hate to see bad deeds go unpunished as much as anyone does, but it's wrong for the NCAA to punish innocent people. I know it's wrong for no one to get a punishment here, but it's even worse to punish people that had nothing to do with the violation. If the NCAA wanted to get justice, they should have gotten it right when they had the chance.