USC Football: Why NCAA Reform Is Key To USC's Success

Usually when Texas, Florida and USC appear in the same sentence during college football season it’s part of a discussion about the national championship. 

Not this year. All three programs are struggling.  

Annually, they recruit among the best classes in the country so surely the explanation isn’t a lack of talent. 

Mack Brown, the Texas head coach, blamed his team’s recent woes on a bad attitude, saying the team had a sense of entitlement. 

At Florida, Urban Meyer blamed lousy practices. 

But over at USC, there’s no shortage of problems. 

Following the Trojans loss to Oregon, head coach Lane Kiffin told reporters that the offense was horrible, the coaches needed to do a better job and some players needed to get their butts in gear (I’m paraphrasing). 

A defense that surrenders 53 points isn’t exactly on fire either.

NCAA-imposed scholarship losses also have been blamed, even though they technically don’t kick in until next year. USC typically travels with 56 scholarship players, 14 less than allowed, and until two weeks ago the Trojans didn’t practice tackling for fear of losing players to injuries. 

I’m not convinced, though, that a focus on only x’s and o’s fully explains what’s happened to the men of Troy.

It’s worth remembering that USC’s decline began under Pete Carroll. Most chalked it up to a freshman quarterback and an off-year. 

Whatever was set in motion last season--inexperience, an off-year, a sense of entitlement--has been exacerbated by the sanctions and the ensuing regime change.

The result: they lack identity. 

Sort of like the younger brother trying to follow in the footsteps of his popular, smart, athletic older brother in school. Until he defines his own path, he’ll never quite measure up. 

These Trojans have been defined mainly by others: by the shadows of older brothers, Leinart, Bush (et. al) and Carroll; by fans and media that accuse them of having been a dirty program; by their athletic director who decided to play nice with the NCAA; and by an unpopular coach who isn’t quite so sour these days but still draws unfavorable comparisons to his predecessor. 

The good news is the Trojans have plenty of five and four-star recruits and even with sanctions can be expected to recruit plenty more. 

The bad news is that they might be their own worst enemy. 

With anything in life, you play to your strengths. Apart from raw talent--and the struggles of USC, Texas and Florida remind us that there’s more to it than that--USC’s strength was its swagger, its energy and its Hollywood mojo. 

The NCAA sanctions did more than reduce scholarships; they encased the football program in a bubble, more or less restricting contact with the outside world--including former players--for a four-year probationary period.  

Bye, bye mojo. 

NCAA sanctions should have nothing to do with Snoop Dogg or Will Ferrell because they weren’t the problem: Reggie Bush and his family were.  

And USC should be objecting, loudly, not only to the excessive penalties in this case--which are the second worst in college football history--but also to the system that created them. 

Institutions of higher learning should be exactly that: smart, reasoned and fair. The NCAA doesn’t pass muster. 

Reform is desperately needed on several fronts, but (for now) I’ll try to confine my comments to infractions. 

Let’s start with the removal of Paul Dee as head of the infractions committee. When you preside over one of the dirtiest programs in college football history, as Dee did at Miami, then you ought to lose the right to tell anyone else they lack institutional control.  

Problem number two is that the system punishes the innocent while John Calipari jumps ship (again) and Reggie gets a Super Bowl ring. It’s wrong and it needs to change. 

The NCAA should beef up its own compliance department (and require the conferences and schools to do the same), increase scholarship allowances, ban or severely restrict agent contact with athletes until they’ve used their eligibility and work out deals with the major sports leagues so athletes can be punished if they slip through the compliance net. 

Why has none of this been done yet? I’ve been to Indianapolis. It’s not like there’s anything else to do there. 

To be sure, USC’s athletic director, Pat Haden, is in a tough spot. The sanctions are under appeal--but only by half and even that’s too much--and making noise probably won’t help his (lost) cause.   

I’m not suggesting the Fonz holds the key to USC’s success, as Texas and Florida remind us. 

But by deciding to play by the rules in a crooked game, Hayden’s setting the wrong example and little brother’s left all alone, searching for his mojo.