Unjust Punishment

I’ve never understood and I probably never will understand why the NCAA likes to punish student-athletes who don’t deserve to be punished.

The NCAA came down unbelievably hard on the USC Trojans college football program yesterday for improper benefits given to former running back and Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush, who now plays in the NFL with the New Orleans Saints. The improper benefits date back to the 2004 season.

The punishment handed down to USC is as follows: two-year ban from bowl games, loss of 30 scholarships and the forfeiting of 14 games from December of 2004 through the 2005 season.
Many people are saying that the biggest loss in all of this is the 30 scholarships being taken away from the USC football program. Yes, it is a big loss, but it isn’t the punishment that hurts the most. Quite frankly losing 30 scholarships seems to be a decent punishment for the program’s infractions.

The punishment that hurts the most and doesn’t seem like a fair one is that of the two-year bowl ban. The NCAA is trying to show USC that they don’t put up with the kind of stuff they did and won’t in the future. However, they are essentially telling the current USC football players who, of course, had nothing to do with the 2004 and 2005 seasons that they don’t care about them.

How is punishing the current USC roster two seasons of bowl games the right thing to do? I feel bad for guys like sophomore quarterback Matt Barkley and senior running back Allen Bradford who essentially have nothing to play for while guys who were on that team like Bush, quarterback Matt Leinart and former coach Pete Carroll are enjoying the luxuries of the NFL.

The current USC football roster includes 30 seniors and 22 juniors that no longer have the
chance or dream of playing in bowl games, unless they opt to transfer to another school. It should be interesting in the weeks and months to come to see how many USC players do transfer.

When universities break rules set forth by the NCAA they should be punished and they should be punished harshly. If you want to take away scholarships than that’s great, but taking away the playoff hopes for innocent athletes who had nothing to do with the football programs past transgressions is thoroughly ridiculous.