USC's Name Will Keep Team Important in a Way That a National Title Can't

I have been very up and down in the past weeks with the sanctions being dropped on the USC football team by the NCAA.

I, along with many others, fully support the USC appeal and think that the NCAA was way too harsh, but that isn't what this article is about.

USC and its fans are preparing to ride out a storm, that according to many, should completely cripple the program. Maybe it will, maybe it won't.

I'm starting to realize that there is a major difference between a football program and a football brand.

Its been over 20 years, long enough for a child to be born and go through college, since the last time Notre Dame did anything important in college football, and they're still one of the most prominent brands in the sport.

And that is even with them going through constant, media disasters such as releasing the horrendous "WE are ND" music video a couple of months back.

ESPN has USC, Notre Dame, and Oklahoma ranked as its top three programs of all time, so I think comparing the Trojans' brand, which dominates the second biggest city in the country (which is located in the most populated state in the country) to Notre Dame's brand is perfectly fair.

The difference for USC is that we're coming off of one of the most dominant, decade-long performances the sport of college football has ever seen. The NCAA cannot sanction that away.

USC has established itself so well in the sport of college football that ESPN.com runs almost weekly front page stories on its football program (and has been for many, many years now), even five years after the last national title win and following a 9-4 season.

Lane Kiffin's alliance with Tennessee was so short lived because he perceived USC to be the greatest coaching job in the sport. Even with the possibility of sanctions looming.

And most will say that while Tennessee isn't Notre Dame, Oklahoma, or Texas, it is a top 10-15 all time program in college football.

The USC name does more for the football brand than winning a national title could for most institutions.

If you don't believe it, wear a USC hat through an airport in an east coast state, and watch people eye you up and down with intense anger. It is comically uncomfortable.

Then wear a hat for a school like Alabama on the west coast, since they just won the national title this year, and watch the complete apathy toward their brand. They have a great, all time program, but they really aren't even one of the two most polarizing schools in the SEC.

That honor for most football fans will still belong to Florida and LSU.

Most people will probably even look at the logo and wonder if its an off-color Oakland Athletics or Atlanta Braves hat.

Some people might even smile or offer up the phrase, "how cute!"

Many can't name a single player off of the Alabama roster in the NFL right now, but you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't know who JaMarcus Russell, Tim Tebow, or Matt Leinart/Mark Sanchez/Carson Palmer/Matt Cassel are. Add Matt Barkley to that list soon.

You could probably get all the way down to John David Booty before someone recalled the names Greg McElroy or John Parker Wilson. Heck, I had to use Google to make sure I got McElroy's name right.

That USC branding trumps a national title about 350 days a year, with the exception being the weeks building up to the title game.

In Alabama's case, its 824 (or however many they claim to have) national titles in college football don't even elevate it to that level.

Actually, to be fair to them, I think they claim 12, but going by their standards of ignoring the modern game, Princeton has 16 national titles in football dating all the way back to the 1860s. Yale has more too.

So when all of the dust settles down after this appeals process, USC fans will still have the knowledge that our team is still the golden boy of the Pac-12. Our relevance is perpetual, and any winning season will keep people talking about our program.

If it came to it, a losing season would too.

We're not Notre Dame because we won't be on a twenty year hiatus from relevance, but it is nice to know we have the branding to weather it. No matter what the case may end up being with the team's immediate future, Trojan football isn't going anywhere.

We are, arguably, the greatest program of all time.

So wear the logo proudly and watch for reactions, because if you're moving around anywhere public, you're guaranteed to get them.