SB Nation User Blog: DC Trojan

Noel Johnson Released from his Letter of Intent

DC Trojan — Wed, 27 May 2009 02:48:14 -0000

Bumped...Looks like some rough seas ahead. - Paragon

One for the basketball fans: Noel Johnson asked for and was given a release from his commitment to play for USC.

Gary Parrish on CBS Sports Online puts it pretty succinctly:

So while it seems possible that Floyd will survive the Mayo mess in terms of his job (if only because some of the allegations are probably unprovable, and it's always hard to show what a man knew and did not know), it's already obvious that his program will have a tough time enduring the "cloud" regardless of how all this shakes out.

Allegations matter, even otherwise unsubstantiated allegations that have yet to be proven with any substantive corroboration.

LA Times reports merger of NCAA investigations of Bush, Mayo

DC Trojan — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 01:44:40 -0000

The LA Times reported today that the NCAA is combining their investigations of improper benefits received by Reggie Bush and O.J. Mayo. This claim is being made by the lawyers of Louis Johnson, the individual who first made the allegations that Mayo had been receiving illegal benefits while enrolled at USC. Currently this has not been confirmed by the NCAA.

Long-time readers of this blog may remember that we have been pretty consistent on the subjects of Bush and Mayo. There's no question that Bush and his family took improper benefits, but equally there's a legitimate argument to be made that the benefits were channeled in such a way as to evade compliance processes. Whereas most compliance regimes are designed to catch boosters providing benefits to students, they are not designed to monitor student's families.

However, and again this is a point we've made consistently, it is significantly harder to make that argument in the case of Mayo, for three reasons: 1) Mayo came after Bush, 2) Mayo was accompanied by Rodney Guillory, who had already been involved in NCAA sanctions against USC's basketball team; and, 3) there's a well known culture of corruption in youth basketball that outstrips anything one might find in football.

One might note in response that Mayo was cleared by the NCAA, but in fairness, what's that's worth? And, if you have to ask for a pre-emptive clearance, isn't that a message in itself?

In any case, with those three differences between Bush and Mayo, a good number of Trojan fans and alumni had the following reaction to the Mayo allegations: "What the hell were you thinking?!"

However, that doesn't get you to the leap made by Louis Johnson's attorney Anthony V. Salerno, who is quoted in the LA Times as follows:

"It makes sense," Salerno said. "The NCAA looks at the program as a whole, and you may be talking about systemic problems in these cases of payments by agents. Yes, these were different teams and coaches. Rather than do it piecemeal, look at the institution."

This is the sort of self-serving distortion that any good lawyer should be able to spout, but does it hold up? That seems doubtful. In both cases, disgruntled former associates blew the whistle on violations when, and only when, they lost on their end of the deal. If there have been systemic payments on a large scale, then that would require that not only was the compliance office failing to catch the activities outside of the normal scope of surveillance (Bush), but also that they were failing to catch more conventional corruption on a grand scale (everyone else). There's simply no evidence that this is the case: if the problem were pervasive, then other disgruntled associates would be lined up to talk to the NCAA with their lawyers in tow, stepping over the players who weren't able to cover their tracks. Two cases out of hundreds of athletes over the time that Bush and Mayo spent at USC don't add up to systemic abuse.

The closest thing to a "systemic" problem is bad judgment in the Athletic Department. In the wake of the Bush imbroglio, they decided to accept a basketball recruit associated with a known problem of a representative, Guillory. Guillory had prior form with sanctions at USC. Guillory was allowed to hang around the Galen Center. And Mayo was engaged not just by Floyd but also by Mike Garrett, who wanted to be sure that Mayo wouldn't screw with SC's APR by checking out after the basketball season was over. There were multiple risk factors, and as anyone with any background in management will tell you, if you have a risk associated with an action, you either accept the risk and mitigate it along the way, or you *don't take the risk in the first place.*

The reason that Mayo's lawyers can blithely make accusations of systemic abuse in the case of 2 athletes, out of the hundreds who have gone through SC without accusation over the same time frame as Bush and Mayo, is that after being caught out by the Bush case, the Athletic Department did not reject the risk associated with Mayo, and they plainly didn't manage the risk either. And that, ultimately, falls at Mike Garrett's door.

If the NCAA has in fact merged these investigations, it suggests that they are less likely to come out with some damning evidence on one instance or the the other. Merge the investigations, and there's a chance to use the surface logic of two closely consecutive cases to suggest that there are institutional control problems. That's a harder issue to answer, and perhaps it offers the NCAA a chance to rap the Athletic Department's knuckles.

In turn, it seems incumbent upon the powers that be at USC to ask some questions not just about day-to-day compliance management, but the bigger picture of what's really being done to manage the Athletic Department and the guidance and direction they provide to the programs under their authority. Because if they aren't learning from these two cases, there's always a chance that some other athlete will decide to take advantage, and that can only be explained away for so long.

Utah for AP #1!

DC Trojan — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 05:20:48 -0000

Hey, I enjoyed the Rose Bowl as much as the next guy (at least the ones not wearing Penn State shirts), but it's hard to argue with 13 - 0 and a solid solid win over Alabama.

MWC SPEED!

Poll

If Texas and Oklahoma lose, should Utah receive AP #1 votes?

Yes

72 votes

No

11 votes

No, they knew the rules when they signed up, they can't appoint themselves # 1, drone drone drone

4 votes

87 votes | Poll has closed

Matt Hayes tries to set a balance

DC Trojan — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 15:22:47 -0000

I'm starting to get the impression that Matt Hayes doesn't really like SC all that much. I can understand projecting a Penn State win of 17 - 16 (ignoring that SC doesn't typically score 3 field goals per game) but was the media blow-job in the run-up to the Rose Bowl so bad that today was the day to crack out the secondary lazy meme: USC isn't that good because they keep losing to "inferior" teams.

(I haven't tracked down the on-line version yet, but it's in the web-based paper on page 8.)

On the one hand, Hayes is right - if SC wanted to be in the MNC game under the current system, then they should have won all their games this year. On the other hand, there are two one-loss games playing in the Rose Bowl, and either of them would be a valid and valuable presence in a playoff for a national championship.

There's not much point in re-hashing the bowl versus playoff argument here, but Hayes is having a fundamentally different conversation than the likes of Pete Carroll - the underlying point is not "we got jobbed this season" but "the bowl system routinely jobs good teams who either have one loss or didn't play the "right" schedule."

Does USC belong in this season's MNC game? Not really, under the current rules. Hayes is right, in the narrow reading of the situation. But in taking the chance to hack on SC for what they aren't actually saying, Hayes is taking an easy run at being the contrarian on New Year's Day.

I hope that SC proves him wrong... on the field.

60 Minutes' interview with Pete Carroll about his work with A Better LA.

DC Trojan — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 03:06:28 -0000

Watch CBS Videos Online

60 Minutes' interview with Pete Carroll about his work with A Better LA.

Decided Schematic Advantage

DC Trojan — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 08:02:35 -0000

I spent more than a few plays last night bitching about the strange offensive play-calling. Either it was more obtuse than usual, or the echoes of the 2007 UCLA game weren't my imagination and the coaches were trying to avoid entirely eviscerating the opposition.

On offense.

The SC defense gave up four 1st downs to Notre Dame, the first of which came at the death of the third quarter, and the fourth of which was a late present from Malik Jackson's personal foul (which he followed up by getting himself ejected - learn a lesson from that, young man!)

If you take a look at the summary stats for the game, you can understand why some portion of the Notre Dame fanbase would like to seek their decided schematic advantage elsewhere:

	Notre Dame	USC
First Downs	4	22
Total Yards	91	449
Passing	41	274
Running	50	175
Penalties	2 - 22	8 - 80
3rd Down	2 - 11	5 - 14
4th Down	0 - 1	0-1
Turnovers	3	3
Possession	25:59	34:01

Next time I complain about SC under-achieving on offense, I'll take a look at this.

Surely this has to be testing the patience of the Irish fans; this has been a good rivalry where even most streaks weren't built on blowouts and beatdowns. I may live to regret this post when Notre Dame lays a fifth consecutive beatdown under Brian Kelly, of course.

USC - Notre Dame 2005: the final drive

DC Trojan — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 07:48:03 -0000

Does this really need any introduction? If I say 4th-and-9 and Bush Push, you know:

USC vs. Notre Dame 2005 Final Drive (via syphic)

If you're feeling like getting your schadenfreude on, visit this page on Brendan Loy's old Irish Trojan blog to get a view of several thousand students going from adrenaline victory screams to an emotional core dump.

USC - Notre Dame 1974: Anthony Davis

DC Trojan — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 07:41:03 -0000

Today's entry into the SC - Notre Dame highlight reel is the 1974 game in the Coliseum. Down 24 - 0 with less than a minute to go in the first half, USC started a frenetic comeback on both sides of the ball that resulted in a final score of 55 - 24.

Anthony Davis sparked the turnaround with a touchdown catch in the last seconds of the second quarter, and by returning the second half kickoff for a touchdown... and the rest, as they say...

USC-ND '74 - The Anthony Davis Game (via sckego)

And on that note, a happy and safe Thanksgiving to all of you.

USC - Notre Dame Highlights 2007

DC Trojan — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 07:31:15 -0000

With John David Booty lost to injury and several iffy games, there was some question about how Mark Sanchez would hold up playing against Notre Dame in South Bend - the newbie quarterback providing some hope for a Notre Dame team that wasn't setting the world on fire.

Unfortunately for the Fighting Irish, hope was elusive, much as was Joe McKnight on his first career touchdown. Once again, the green shirts proved to be no help as Notre Dame lost, 38 - 0, the worst home loss since 1956, and a ticket to a 1 - 7 record.

In the aftermath, ESPN edited the highlights very much at Notre Dame's expense. One can only imagine that perhaps Mark May greased a few palms in the editing room to get this gem worked up:

2007 USC vs Notre Dame (38:0 shut out game summary) (via MonkeyBoyVlog)

Notre Dame Highlights - 2006

DC Trojan — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 07:21:11 -0000

I thought that this week we might as well dip into the video archives and see if there were any interesting clips of past USC - Notre Dame games.

Perhaps not surprisingly, given the 13 year streak that Notre Dame had running, there are lots and lots of clips of USC being on the wrong end of a result. But there are a few that may catch your fancy.

Today's clips come from the 2006 game in the Coliseum, and they are short but sweet. The first, chosen to complement today's story in the LA Times, is of Brian Cushing returning an onside kick for a garbage time touchdown - a good-looking play regardless of when it happened:

USC/Dome : TD The Bergen Flash!! (via ronhir)

The second video... well, here's the thing. I never had much of an opinion of Brady Quinn before this game, but if one player could have won a game on grit and determination, he would have been it. IIRC, he had the longest run of the night for Notre Dame, among other big plays.

But... the price of big plays is big hits, as we are reminded here:

Brady Quinn "Fuck Me" - USC vs. Notre Dame 2006 (via rwaley)

Quinn really couldn't have done any more than he did in that game - he really impressed the hell out of me, and 1) isn't that what counts? , and 2) that's what this rivalry game should be about.