General

The NCAA Is Getting Around To Sanctioning USC Sometime, Promise

May 25, 2010, 7:40 PM UTC

â†µThe NCAA's standard timeframe for publishing an infractions report after their "Come To The Blue Dot" meeting is six to ten weeks. USC's epic, three-day edition of that meeting happened in February. For those scoring at home, nearly 14 weeks have elapsed since the bellhops stopped shoving around boxes of documents about Reggie Bush. What's the deal?â†µ

â†µâ†µWell, there are lots of lines, you see, and each must be combed like the desert: â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥With committee members spread across the United States, getting everyone on a 10-member committee to sign off on all the language contained in what is surely a weighty document is a daunting challenge.â†µâ‡¥
â†µâ‡¥
â†µâ‡¥After an initial draft is prepared, the committee convenes by conference calls to review and make changes.â†µâ‡¥
â†µâ‡¥
â†µâ‡¥“It’s literally done line by line,” Yeager said.â†µâ‡¥

â†µâ†µâ†µWe’ve finally found a job worse than British Petroleum PR flack circa 2010, especially because this task is done on top of the piles of mind-numbing work generally assigned NCAA compliance professionals. It takes a special kind of dedication to keep at it, and the committee can be forgiven if it gets three paragraphs into Subsection B of Section 2 in Chapter III in Volume 1 of the USC report, falls asleep, and wakes up wondering what day it is. They’re just human, after all.â†µ

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â†µAs we wait, we can ponder on the vast breadth and scope of the the investigation as framed by redshirt freshman offensive lineman Kevin Graf:â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥“This happened, I think, when I was in like seventh grade, so there’s no way I can control this.”â†µâ‡¥

â†µâ†µâ†µHas an NCAA investigation ever made someone feel old before? I feel old. â†µ

â†µâ†µI’m inclined to see this as another tiny bit of circumstantial evidence that USC’s going to get hammered like no school since SMU, but I fully admit I see circumstantial evidence USC is going to get hammered in weather patterns these days, and my opinion cannot be considered reliable. I still hang on to the NCAA rejecting USC’s request to self-impose sanctions as an indicator they are planning something unprecedented with the case, something that would require a clear board before they drop a bomb. What could that be? Long-term sanctions starting after this year coupled with the invalidation of signed LOIs and removal of transfer restrictions on USC players is the best combination of punishment for the institution without harming the players. â†µ

â†µâ†µIf, of course, the NCAA decides to do much at all. I imagine that if they weren’t going to drop a bomb, however, they could have wrapped this up in something less than four months.â†µ

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This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.

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