Picking at Ozymandias: USC’s Dillon Baxter Alleges Illegal Contact

Friday, the NCAA announced that USC juniors and seniors can transfer without sitting out a season, a benevolent decision for the players who had the rug tugged out from under them earlier this week. And NCAA rules permit any team to initiate contact with those players. But, of course, it’s the young guys people want, and that’s why Dillon Baxter is crying foul. From SB Nation’s reporting of Joe Schad’s tweets:⇥⇥USC RB Dillon Baxter has told his compliance dept that five schools illegally contacted him June 10⇥⇥⇥⇥USC says Dillon Baxter was contacted illegally by Florida, Oregon, Washington, Alabama and Fresno⇥⇥

⇥⇥⇥⇥⇥USC has asked Pac-10 to contact accused schools⇥⇥

Why would these schools want Dillon Baxter? How about a visual aid?

Representatives from Florida, Alabama, and Oregon have all denied the allegations. It’s clear that vultures are circling, though. Baxter might not jump ship, but planting the idea that USC is sinking has to be attractive to literally every school in the Pac-Whatever-It-Ends-Up-Being or any school that could benefit from an extra transfer or two.

And this is the problem that a two-year bowl ban and scholarship limiting brings: It’s going to impact USC’s ability to put a BCS bowl-caliber team on the field not just now but for five or six years. Already, as USC’s talent transitioned from Matt Leinart to Mark Sanchez to Matt Barkley, the Trojans had decayed from playing for national titles to the middle of the Pac-10.

Should that trend continue, the falling USC empire—already on its knees after this week—will be fully felled. And Trojans fans will have little to look forward to but despair.

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