USC Football Stripped Of Its ‘05 BCS Orange Bowl Trophy Following NCAA Sanctions

USC still has it’s 2004 BCS National Championship trophy (for now), but the school has been stripped of its 2005 Orange Bowl hardware by the BCS. The ’05 Orange Bowl was a 55-19 thumping of Oklahoma that featured Matt Leinart throwing five touchdown passes, which suddenly seems like a really long time ago.

BCS executive director/Public enemy No. 1 Bill Hancock released a statement:

“In accordance with the findings released today by the NCAA, the University of Southern California’s 2005 Orange Bowl game victory has been vacated. We take the integrity of NCAA rules seriously. As a procedural matter, the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee (POC) must meet to formally consider vacating USC’s championship title and the game records. If the POC takes such action, there would be no BCS champion for the 2004-05 season. The POC will meet shortly to discuss this matter.

“In light of USC’s statement that it intends to appeal, we want to make it clear that no action will go into effect until the appeal is heard and decided by the NCAA.”

This news isn’t dampening the spirits of SB Nation’s USC bloggers, who will cherish the memories of a game that their school no longer (technically) won:

As Paragon and I have both stated on multiple occasions, we really don’t care if the BCS or the NCAA wants to strip USC of wins. We all saw the games. We all know what happened. No matter what occurs from here on out, the score will always remain 55-19. That isn’t going to change. I have the DVD of the game at home. It’s still going to show the touchdown passes, the breathtaking runs, and bone-crunching tackles. Granted, it won’t be “official” anymore, but at the end, it’s largely irrelevant.