USC Trojans Continue Slipping With Sanctions
On September 2, the Thursday before Labor Day, the USC football team will travel to Hawaii to kick off their football season with a game against the Rainbow Warriors.
Odds are, at least some of USC's players might request to just stay there permanently, and a number of college football fans nationwide will be glad if they stayed.
After a 2009 season that saw the Trojans get blown out by both Oregon and Stanford en route to a 5-4 Pac-10 conference record amid rumblings of possible sanctions over improper gifting to Reggie Bush and his family, head coach Pete Carroll took the head coaching job with the Seattle Seahawks.
Then the Trojans continued to raise eyebrows by bringing in Lane Kiffin to succeed Carroll in spite of his one year of failure at Tennessee and two years of failure with the Oakland Raiders before that.
Now, the shine is finally off the Rose Bowl, as the Trojans have been hit with massive sanctions over the handling of Bush. The team will forfeit 14 wins from Bush's time at USC including a 2004 Orange Bowl win that earned a national championship. They also will not attend a bowl game this season or next no matter their record, and will forfeit 10 scholarships per year for the next three years.
The forfeited wins and bowl game ban are relatively minor compared to the scholarship punishment. This seriously hinders the ability of Kiffin, supposedly a great recruiter, to do his job. He wont be able to recruit as good a caliber player since he won't have as much money to dole out, nor will some players want to still attend USC after this latest debacle.
Add in to this the statement that current USC juniors and seniors who choose to transfer will not be required to sit and can play right away, and the exodus from Kiffin's sideline could be swift and painful to the on-field product.
No doubt UCLA's Rick Neuheisel has to be salivating over the potential talent coup he can now engage in.
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