Worth The Trouble?
In January, the NCAA denied Florida State's appeal that cost Bobby Bowden 14 victories. In March, the NCAA denied Alabama's appeal that vacated 21 victories. By the way, the Alabama appeal took nine months to decide, so maybe that's where Lane Kiffin gets his timetable. And it makes the idea of canceling the 13th game moot, unless as I mentioned earlier, the NCAA could force USC to cancel a 12th game in 2011 or 2012.
Those cases were considered smaller than USC's, so what chance do the Trojans really have of winning an appeal?
I think they have a chance of prevailing on the 2nd year of bowl ban. The NCAA's comment shows that the decision to make the bowl ban a two-year ban was arbitrary. "The player participated in two bowls while ineligible." They made no finding to suggest that any amount of diligence would have uncovered Bush's ineligibility for the 2004 UCLA game or the 2005 Orange Bowl, therefore, punishing the university with an extra season of bowl ban for that is arbitrary and capricious.
I also wonder whether the NCAA has the legal authority to compel USC to breach its contracts with Hawaii, Virginia, Minnesota or Notre Dame for the 2010 games.
My guess (hope) is that the appeal will be dropped after camp starts and all the players are in.
OU won their appeal. Plus, I think USC's appeal will be in parallel with a state court lawsuit.
The "size" of the case should have no bearing on the outcome - merely the legitimacy the case. Besides, SC has a lot of smart alumni (a lot of whom are lawyers) I'm sure a few of them can come together and pick this crummy case apart.
Too bad we're not West Virginia or some other Appalachian university - a few well placed moles or dirt diggers and I'm sure someone could uncover something on these pious members of the infractions committee.