NCAA sanctions don’t stop USC – Yet.

There’s an interesting analysis from ESPN.com’s Brian Maisel today, in which he explains how USC’s Lane Kiffin has managed to escape the expected punitive smackdown of the NCAA sanctions levied in the Reggie Bush case.

Kiffin did it through a stroke of luck and some shrewd roster management. We touched on this subject right after signing day, dubbing Kiffin the Sith Lord of Roster Management.

Maisel describes the plan, just as this site did about seven months ago. It really was a masterful use of the system and the situation Kiffin found himself in, and it underscores why so many people are thinking that this punk kid of a coach might be smarter than we gave him credit for:

---

In 2010, the NCAA smacked USC with a loss of 10 scholarships per year for three years and an overall limit of 75, 10 below the FBS maximum. Kiffin laid out for university president Max Nikias and athletic director Pat Haden the difference between serving the penalties immediately and appealing them.

He created a chart showing the impact of the scholarship cuts if taken immediately. Years of undersigning by Kiffin's mentor and predecessor, Pete Carroll, combined with the departure of several players who transferred after the Trojans suffered a bowl ban, left USC with 67 scholarship players as it entered the 2010 season. If Kiffin could bring in only 15 players per year beginning in 2011, it would be difficult to climb back to full strength.

The administration might have decided to file an appeal for the same reason that anyone files an appeal -- to look for relief. But USC also filed an appeal to game the system. By delaying the scholarship penalties until the appeal had been heard -- and denied -- the Trojans could sign a full class of recruits in February 2011. In fact, because several players enrolled in January, the Trojans signed 31 players, well over the limit of 25 (early enrollees may be assigned to the previous year's allotment).

---

While gaming the calendar and taking advantage of Carroll’s drop-off in recruiting, Kiffin also took another masterful step—he promptly redshirted half of 2011 class. This buying forward approach is shrewd, but it likely only delays the inevitable. By redshirting half of the 2011 class and combining it with the 17 signed in the 2012 class, Kiffin enters the fall camp with a wealth of talent.

With arguably the 2013 Draft’s first pick in QB Matt Barkley, a tenacious defense and that much talent, there’s a very good chance that USC runs through a favorable schedule and makes a run at the BCS Championship.

But the fact remains that USC is still thin in several key units on the team. No need to go into specifics on that here, but the penalty phase of USC’s sanctions run through 2014, during which Kiffin may only carry 75 total players on scholarship and still faces a limit on initial counters for the 2014 signing class.

NCAA sanctions are carefully crafted and there’s about as much of a chance of totally escaping the damage as Johnny Favorite did of escaping his deal with the Devil in Angel Heart.

Kiffin can still minimize the damage, but a lot of things have to go his way. First, he has to have the successful 2012 season he’s expected to. Second, every one of his incoming players must be can’t-miss contributors and need to play right away. Third, he can’t take any academic at-risks or have kids kicked off the team. Fourth, he has to make sure that all of his players hold the rope and don’t transfer or skip early to the NFL Draft. Fifth, he has to escape serious injury that sidelines key players on both sides of the ball.

Last of all, he has to stay out of any further NCAA trouble, a prospect that many fans scoff at given his track record.

Even if he does all that as well as he managed the 2011-12 signing classes, the 2013-2015 seasons are likely to be nowhere near as sweet as the 2012 season is expected to be. NCAA sanctions are designed to be punitive. You can run, but sooner or later…

Follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

USC’s alleged firebug said God told him to “burn things…”

Via ESPN News Service:

Kevin Ellison, once one of the top defensive backs in the nation for the USC Trojans before being sidelined by a knee injury as a senior, has been arrested on federal arson charges after he reportedly told investigators he set his bed ablaze with a marijuana-filled cigar because "God" told him to.

According to local media, Ellison confessed to starting a fire that engulfed an apartment early Thursday morning in Liberty Lake, Wash., near Spokane, after initially telling authorities he had been smoking in bed. Ellison, who played briefly for the San Diego Chargers after college, has been playing linebacker for the Spokane Shock of the Arena Football League.

Ellison reportedly jumped from the third-story unit but sustained only smoke inhalation.

Read the original story here.

We can only imagine how that dream might have gone. But maybe it went something like this:

“...and there would be a Great Burning.

About that he cared very much. In the dreams the dark man came to him and spread out his arms from a high place and showed Trashcan a country in flames. Cities going up like bombs. Cultivated fields drawn in lines of fire. The very rivers of Chicago and Pittsburgh and Detroit and Birmingham ablaze with floating oil. And the dark man had told him a very simple thing in his dreams, a thing which had brought him running: I will set you high in my artillery. You are the man I want.

The first reader to identify that passage gets a one-year subscription to IBleedCrimsonRed.com.

The second reader gets a two-year subscription.

Follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

Lane Kiffin: Sith Lord of Roster Management

When it comes to the black art of roster management, there is no equal to USC’s Lane Kiffin. Recruiting under the cloud of the harshest NCAA sanctions handed down since the SMU “death penalty” case, Darth Kiffin is crafting a roster so stocked with talent and youth that it may be hard to see the effects of the penalties handed down in June 2010 and upheld on appeal in May 2011. Reggie who?

The sanctions were intended to severely punish the Trojan football program. It was supposed to wander in the darkness for the better part of a decade. They were supposed to be the ideal homecoming opponent for Colorado. They were not supposed to emerge from probation stocked with talent and ready for runs at PAC-12 and national titles, but they may well do just that.

How could this happen?

The answer lies in looking back in time and reviewing recruiting and roster figures from the years preceding Kiffin’s arrival before the 2010 season. Dr. Saturday has a keen analysis of how USC recruited lightly in Pete Carroll’s final years, leaving Kiffin with fewer scholarship players than the sanctions called for going forward. Once the severity of the sanctions were known (and the chances of successful appeal rated), Kiffin loaded up the magazine. He signed 30 players in the 2011 class, back counted several to the 2010 class and promptly redshirted half of them.

Add those 15 redshirts to the 2012 class of 17 new scholarship players and the freshman class that shows up for fall camp will be more than doubled. These aren’t two- and three-star projects, either. Half of recruits in the 2011 class were either four- or five-star players, so the talent pool on the field next September will be very young, but very rich.

In fact, the 2012 Trojans are one of the most popular picks to win the PAC-12 and play for the national championship.

The NCAA intended the sanctions to hurt and they may still make their impacts felt in the next few years. When recruiting under such harsh limits, you have to have a lot of luck avoiding injuries. Off the field issues have to be kept to a minimum. There is no such animal as a project recruit—every player you sign has to be a bona fide “can’t miss” and has to be ready to contribute immediately. And once you’ve gotten those can’t miss prospects in the corral, you have to convince them to hold the rope and resist the temptation to transfer or jump early to the NFL draft.

If Kiffin can do that, he will not only rule as the Sith Lord of Roster Management, he will also have shown programs like North Carolina how to practice the dark art of beating harsh NCAA sanctions.

Padawan Fedora, are you paying attention?

Follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

The righteously indignant Pete Fiutak gets it wrong

Dear Mr. Fiutak:

Reinstatement decisions are NOT enforcement investigations.

In a column posted yesterday, Fox Sports’ Pete Fiutak takes the NCAA to task for what he sees as a glaring inconsistency in upholding the sanctions that hammer Southern Cal for the Reggie Bush case. He makes the mistake of comparing the Bush enforcement improper benefits case to the reinstatement decisions made by a completely different arm of the NCAA.

I probably shouldn’t single out Fiutak because honestly, he’s not the only one who gets it wrong. The sentiments he express are found in columns on sports pages across the country. They’re on websites, blogs and internet message boards. Very few of’em get it.

While Mr. Fiutak will get no argument from me that the NCAA’s “every case is different” approach to both enforcement and reinstatement matters is a recipe for chaos and confusion, his column contributes absolutely nothing to resolving the national confusion over the difference between the results of investigations conducted by the league’s enforcement arm and decisions rendered by a reinstatement staff with no investigatory powers whatsoever.

People want to compare the USC case to the other two highest profile cases of blatant violation of amateurism rules—the Cam Newton case at Auburn and the Tressel, Pryor et al case at Ohio State. In doing so, they try to make the case that Southern Cal is being made to pay a heavy price while Auburn and Ohio State get away scot free.

Here’s the key difference: The Bush case—after a half-decade of media and NCAA background investigation, a notice of inquiry, the formal enforcement investigation, a notice of allegations, a Committee on Infractions hearing, a decision, an appeal and a decision on the appeal—was a thorough, full-fisted anal exam conducted by people with no connection to the Trojan program. Meanwhile, the reinstatement processes that resulted in the eligibility decisions at Auburn and Ohio State were the result of dog-and-pony shows written, produced and directed by the schools themselves.

Repeat after me: Reinstatement decisions are NOT enforcement investigations.  Lather, rinse and for God’s sake repeat this to every college sports fan you encounter.

The Infractions Committee relied on information produced by the NCAA enforcement staff and that information was the closest to the truth that anyone could ever hope for. The reinstatement decisions were based on information provided by the schools, and that information was prepared in a manner that puts the best light on the school that anyone could hope for. It’s a huge difference and it seems to be completely lost on people who should know better.

I am the first to admit that while I know more about NCAA rules and procedures than I ever wanted to, I still have a great deal to learn. It would be helpful if Pete Fiutak and all the other master blasters in the national sports media would slow down, understand the processes involved and at least try to grasp this key distinction between enforcement and reinstatement matters. By not doing so, they’re not helping the public get their own arms around the concepts.

I’ll bet there’s one thing on which Fiutak and I can agree. That would be a standardized set of penalties with mandatory minimum sentences for major violations. This idea was posited by MrSEC. Such a system would end the “every case is different” approach currently in place in both the enforcement and reinstatement offices of the NCAA. To be certain, some unintended victims will suffer under such a cut-and-dried system. But if everyone understands what the penalties are—that all drug dealers, murderers and rapists go to prison, no matter what—there will be fewer people weighing the risk reward ratio and making the wrong decision.

We need that and if this week’s news is any indication, we might soon get it.

Follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

 

USC case has ominous implications for programs under scrutiny

Mark Emmert was named the NCAA President on April 27, 2010. Emmert almost immediately began talking up a revamp of the Enforcement process, and before he formally took office in October, he’d already begun shaking up staff and reorganizing the front office. Forty-four days atfer being named President, the league’s Committee on Infractions released a scathing, 67-page report, painstakingly detailing a four year pattern of rules violations at the University of Southern California. The violations, wrote the committee,  “struck at the heart of the NCAA's Principle of Amateurism.” 

USC appealed, holding out slim hopes that recent reinstatement decisions would at least provide an avenue for the Appeals Committee to set aside some of the sanctions levied by Infractions. Yesterday, that committee DENIED that appeal and let stand a series of extraordinarily punitive measures against the school’s Football, Men’ Basketball and Women’s Tennis programs.

Make no mistake about it—sanctions for major violations are designed to punish the institution and do so in a manner that the committee deems appropriate for the violations committed. Whether or not you agree that these penalties are consistent with the crimes, you can’t deny that they are harsh and that they will bring the Trojans to their knees for years to come.

The severity of these penalties and the league’s unwillingness to show any mercy on appeal should also serve notice to the host of college athletics programs currently under NCAA Enforcement scrutiny, especially those involved in high-profile cases with headline-making allegations of impropriety. Auburn, North Carolina, Ohio State and Tennessee are all under ongoing investigations, some of which allege the same types of amateurism violations as those demonstrated in the USC case.

Should any or all of these programs come before the Committee on Infractions, they can expect to defend themselves against allegations contained in a highly detailed Enforcement report, with every “i” dotted, every “t” crossed and every footnote documented. They can expect to receive harshly punitive sanctions that will severely hamper their competitive abilities on the field or court, and they can expect the Appeals committee to show no mercy whatsoever, absent a glaring error on the part of Enforcement staff or the Infractions Committee.

You might think it’s a stretch to correlate Emmert’s “get tough” approach to rules violators,  the severity of USC’s penalties and yesterday’s seemingly merciless denial on appeal. Don’t kid yourself. This is Mark Emmert’s NCAA and it’s Mark Emmert’s Enforcement philosophy.

If you get caught committing major rules violations and try to stonewall or deceive the league, you will become the conference whipping boy for the better part of a decade.  Watch USC’s performance on the field over the next several years, and behold your likely fate.

Follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

 

Blog: NCAA Committee DENIES Southern Cal, affirms all penalties

Via Conquest Chronicles, a Southern Cal blog with a pretty good following.

---

Conquest Chronicles understands, based on multiple sources, that the NCAA has denied USC's appeal, much as Pat Haden and many others predicted they likely would. As we get more information on the ruling, we'll be keeping an eye out for reaction from with the football program, any impact on scholarships for 2011, and so on. The official stories should start to appear late today.

---

Nothing from any of the major news organizations yet but if CC is right, that’s only a matter of minutes.

UPDATE: Sure enough. Rivals/Yahoo! Sports is confirming, as is Bryan Fischer of CBS Sports. 

Trojan fans had pinned their hopes on the Cam Newton reinstatement decision last December, and their spirits rose even further with an equally mind-numbing reinstatement decision for Terrelle Pryor et al at Ohio State.

Alas for the Men of Troy, those weren’t decisions rendered at the end of full fledged NCAA enforcement investigations. The USC case took almost half a decade to resolve, from the first media reports of improper benefits through today’s news that their appeal had been denied.

Nearly a year ago, the NCAA Committee on Infractions released its report and included the following sanctions against the Men’s Basketball and Football programs:

• Four years probation
• Football hit with two-year ban on postseason play
• Basketball hit with one-year ban on postseason play
• Football hit with 30 scholarships over three years (10 per year) beginning in 2011
• Football limited to 75 scholarship players on the roster for three years beginning in 2011
• Fines and forfeitures totalling $211,200.
• Vacation of wins, including regular and postseason wins.
• Vacation of the 2005 Orange Bowl, where the Trojans trounced the Oklahoma Sooners for the 2004 BCS Championship.
• Finding of "lack of institutional control."
• Players currently enrolled and affected by the ban could transfer to any Division I school with no “sit out” penalty of one year.

In September, Reggie Bush surrendered his Heisman Trophy.

Follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

 

Ruh Roh: NCAA to Hammer Tennessee?

Clay Travis at NCAA Fanhouse has the exclusive, so I’m only going to link to his article and post this snippet.

---

The NCAA will cite the University of Tennessee's football program with a failure to monitor violation stemming from the short tenure of head coach Lane Kiffin, multiple sources close to the investigation both inside and outside the university told FanHouse.

The violation is related to improper recruiting contacts by Vol coaches and by Vol hostesses in the since disbanded Orange Pride program. What's more, in a stunning development that reaches across the country and implicates another of the nation's most-storied programs, the NCAA will also cite current USC head coach Lane Kiffin with a failure to monitor charge as well as additional citations against Kiffin's brother-in-law, David Reaves, formerly an assistant quarterbacks coach at Tennessee.

---

And then I’ll remind readers that yesterday, the media was abuzz over the fact that Kiffin was on his way to signing a big time class at USC, despite that program facing crippling sanctions over the Reggie Bush affair.

While that case is under appeal, the sanctions weren’t binding until the Committee on Appeals has ruled. This lets the staff sign as many as the rules allow.

Exit question: Do you think Kiffin’s nose thumbing at USC has anything to do with the severity of the coming hammer blow?

Double Exit question: Do you think that given the recent antics down on the plains at Auburn, the NCAA lowers a heavier boom if pay-for-play and deliberate eligibility gamesmanship is proven?

Recruiting: Lane Kiffin playing with fire, or playing by the rules?

Dave Miller at National Football Post wonders if former Tennessee head football coach Lane Kiffin is taking advantage of a loophole in NCAA recruiting rules. Kiffin and USC are recruiting lights out for the 2010 class, and National Signing Day is tomorrow, February 2. They have 25 verbal commits already, and NCAA rules allow up to 28 to address academic non-qualifiers.  But wait… Isn’t Southern Cal under sanction?

Last year, the NCAA Committee on Infractions absolutely hammered the football program over the Reggie Bush fiasco. The Committee imposed a 30 scholarship reduction over three years (10 each year), which was supposed to go in place before the 2011 calendar and season.

So how is Kiffy able to load up on top drawer recruits, following a no-bowl, dismal 8-5 season?

Enter the ubiquitous NCAA loophole!

---

Lane Kiffin is merely taking advantage of the appeals process as the school fights sanctions that would limit its signing classes to 15 for 2011 through 2013. Until the NCAA makes a ruling on the Trojans’ appeal, the sanctions will be kept on hold. The school also is fighting the back half of the two-year bowl ban.

is not expected until February or March.

Which means that Kiffin is on the hunt for several of the nation’s top prospects, and the former Tennessee head coach has already snagged some of the best available talent in what he has described as “the most important class ever signed at USC because of the situation surrounding it.”

Out of the school’s current 25 commits, nine players have already enrolled early in January. Quarterbacks Max Wittek and Cody Kessler were big “gets” for Kiffin, as well as addressing the lack of depth at offensive line. The class also could include multipurpose threat De'Anthony Thomas and receiver George Farmer, perhaps the nation's top receiver.

Of course, real drama could unfold on National Signing Day if players who have made commitments give in to final sales pitches from other major programs.

But for now, the situation at ‘SC doesn’t appear so bleak.

So what happened to the program being handcuffed? Is Kiffin taking advantage of a loophole?

Well, it depends on how you look at it.

---

If I recall correctly, USC fought the NCAA tooth and nail, managing to stall the league for years. I don’t think they self-imposed any scholarship reductions, so continuing on as if the sanctions are not in place is in technical compliance with the rules and consistent with a profession of innocence.

But the “playing with fire” aspect of this story is that Kiffin is running a terrible risk. The appeals committee might treat Kiffin’s latest play with such scorn that they make the sanctions stick in the 2011 year, forcing USC to cut loose ten recruits.  Which ten?

Exit question: What are the chances that the NCAA allows any and all 2011 recruits to retain all eligibility and transfer to any school of their choice?

 

NCAA hammers Southern Cal

Today, the NCAA released its report on the four-years long investigation of alleged rules violations at the University of Southern California, regarding impermissible benefits and impermissible contact with sports agents. Speculation ranged from USC getting only a minor slap on the wrist to the dreaded "death penalty," which would have ended football at the storied program for a period of at least three years.

The NCAA came down on the harsh end of the scale. Penalties affected football, men's basketball and women's tennis.  Here's what USC will have to suffer through in the coming years:

• Four years probation
• Football hit with two-year ban on postseason play
• Basketball hit with one-year ban on postseason play
• Football hit with 30 scholarships over three years (10 per year) beginning in 2011
• Football limited to 75 scholarship players on the roster for three years beginning in 2011
• Fines and forfeitures totalling $211,200.
• Vacation of wins in all three programs, including regular and postseason wins.
• Vacation of the 2005 Orange Bowl, where the Trojans trounced the Oklahoma Sooners for the 2004 BCS Championship
• Finding of "lack of institutional control."

The ESPN.com story is here. If you are so inclined, here is the full NCAA Committee on Infractions Report.

These sanctions are going to absolutely cripple the football program at USC, and the damage will last for years.  In 2001, Alabama received only slightly less harsh penalties that put the program in a world of SEC hurt for more than half a decade.  It wasn't until the hiring of Nick Saban that Alabama truly recovered from the decimation of the sanctions.

While I strongly support the enforcement of recruiting and benefit rules for college athletes, I strongly oppose the current method of administering punishment.  None of the players on any of the affected teams had anything to do with the infractions documented in the report, but they are the ones who will suffer the greatest.   Fans have no "skin in the game."  The coaching staff that committed or permitted the infractions are gone and the current staff has ironclad contracts in place.  The administrators are similarly insulated.  The least guilty group--the current kids on the team--pay the price for those who went before them. To me, that's just not what the rule of law in this country is supposed to be about.

Until the NCAA grows the balls to start hurting the perpetrators financially, cases like this aren't going to stop anytime soon.