Someone Owes Me $50 Bucks!!!! And The Juice Is Running!!!

News broke yesterday that the BSC is going to strip USC of its 2004 National Championship.   It was a final sanction on USC after years of investigation and exploration into their athletics programs.  It was discovered that Reggie Bush, a member of the 2004 National Championship team,  had received improper benefits prior to and during the season, thereby making him ineligible for the season.  A key player for the Trojans that year, he was instrumental in several key victories (one of those victories came against the Cal Bears; stealing their berth to the Rose Bowl) that led them to the National Championship game.  All is now for not.

A great friend reminded me that both he and I had lost parlay bets on that National Championship game.  While in South Lake Tahoe at the time, we both had placed bets on USC to win and giving up points, but through bad advice from a partial friend (a Trojan honk), he advised us to take the under on the total score, as he was attempting to be objective and thought the defenses for both teams would keep the game close and the score low.  Being young, naïve sports betters that we were at the time and not trusting our gut, we took his advice.  Sadly, the under was broken midway through the second quarter.  My $50 two-pick parlay was ripped to shreds and left on the sportsbook floor of Caesars Palace, now known as the Monte Bleu Casino.  Little did we know, that 7 years later, that game would now never exist; at least in the records books.  So now that USC was playing with an ineligible player, cheated that entire season, cheated the Ca Bears from a Rose Bowl Berth (I mean, Aaron Rodgers had 23 straight completions in the lost to USC that year!!  Epic game!!) and now has to vacate their National Championship title, banner, and trophy; I’m coming for my $50 bucks.  Someone owes me $50 bucks!!!  Whether it’s USC, Caesars Palace, Reggie Bush, Pete Carroll, the NCAA; someone needs to pony up!!!  And the juice is running!!!

The judgment coming down from the BCS only leads me to believe that the NCAA is going to start cracking down hard on programs that violate their rules.  This is a prime opportunity for the NCAA to make examples out of USC, and now, THE Ohio State; programs that both committed major rules violations.  For a long time, the NCAA has been walked on and laughed at by programs for years.  Programs and Institutions have committed major rules violations against the NCAA and have gotten away with it without being heavily disciplined.  That culture will soon be changing.  If anything, the USC judgment handed down yesterday should be a signal to THE Ohio State University of what’s too come.  If USC can lose a National Championship for paying one players’ parents mortgage, then what’s coming to THE Ohio State?  I mean, we are talking about possibly vacating years of wins for THE Ohio State.  We have Fiesta Bowls, Rose Bowls, a Heisman winner, and one National Championship.  Maybe Miami finally gets their vengeance for the phantom pass interference call?  We will eventually find out after the NCAA finished their investigation into the program.  But one can only imagine what that punishment will be.

In my opinion, stripping a school of their National Championship, Bowl victories, or regular season wins, is a meaningless punishment that is more for show than anything.  People will still remember and recognize USC as being the National Champions that year, whether they have a trophy or banner at their school.  The NCAA isn’t going to go "Men In Black" on everyone and erase their memory of that year.  A perfect example is the University of Michigan and the Fab Five.  They made Michigan take down their Final Four banners from the Fab Five years and erased all their stats and records from those two years.  According to the record books, the Fab Five never existed.  Yet many people still glorify them and recognize their accomplishments.  Good going NCAA!!!  If anything, you are drawing more attention to the fact and making more people remember who they were (I shouldn't talk too down on the Fab Five, as I am one of those admirers). 

What really hurt Michigan after the fallout from the NCAA's long investigation into their basketball program, was the loss of scholarships.  This is what set that program back many years, as they are just now starting to come back from it.  And that is what needs to happen to programs like USC and THE Ohio State.  There needs to be major scholarship reductions that will have lasting effects on these programs that commit the level of rule violations that USC and THE Ohio State did.  Also, major cash penalties need to be handed down as well.  USC and THE Ohio State made boatloads of money off of the years in which they committed their violations, and they should have to surrender or repay those funds, starting with paying me my $50 bucks back!!! 

Mr. Armchair Speaking