For U.S.C. Football, the Squirming Begins

TEMPE, Ariz. — With the knot of his light purple tie loosened from his neck and the jacket from his stylish khaki suit long removed, Lane Kiffin left the University of Southern California’s hearing with the N.C.A.A.’s committee on infractions.



Looking restless, Kiffin declared to no one in particular Saturday night, “I’ve never moved less in a 72-hour period.”

Now that the three-day hearing before the N.C.A.A. is over, the real anxiety will come over the next two months. That is about how long it will take for the committee on infractions to determine the fate of U.S.C.’s athletic department, football program and men’s basketball program.

The list of potential N.C.A.A. infractions is familiar at this point, most notably reports of a long list of extra benefits, including cash, housing and a car, to former Trojans like Reggie Bush, Joe McKnight and O. J. Mayo.

Perhaps now the most important question will be what happens to the football program, whose case before the N.C.A.A. occupied two of the three days of this hearing. With Will Ferrell and Snoop Dogg on the sideline and seven Heisman Trophies in Heritage Hall, Trojans football is one of the most revered brand names in college sports.

U.S.C. sits nervously at a crossroads, with the university perhaps facing charges of lack of institutional control; the former coach Pete Carroll, the running backs coach Todd McNair, Athletic Director Mike Garrett and Kiffin, the new head coach, were among those who appeared before the committee at a resort conference room.

The hearings were secret, and participants were required not to reveal anything to the news media. A decision will be made only after hours of conference calls between the members of the committee on infractions.

But there were signs from the hearings that make it highly improbable U.S.C. football will leave this multimillion-dollar, four-year investigation with a wrist slap. The first and most glaring hint came from a hotel bellhop, who practically grunted while pushing an industrial luggage cart full of documents out of the meeting room. There were seven boxes on the cart, including a six-inch-thick binder labeled U.S.C. Response Volume 1.

Tom Yeager, a former chairman of the infractions committee, noted in a telephone interview last week that the inside joke among committee members was whether or not a case was a “one-box” case or a “two-box” case.

When that joke was relayed to David Price, the N.C.A.A.’s vice president for enforcement services, he said that U.S.C.’s case in front of the N.C.A.A. was the longest in his 11 years with the committee.

Although it would be a leap to say that the more boxes and the more days of the hearing, the more seriously U.S.C. will be punished, it is fair to say that the reams of paperwork and the length of the hearing at least indicate the breadth of the proceedings.

Price also said that most times the committee met, it heard cases from several universities, and this one was dedicated to U.S.C. In contrast, Alabama’s case before the N.C.A.A. in 2002, which resulted in five years of probation, a two-year postseason ban and crippling scholarship reductions, took two days.

One person who may not be waiting for a ruling from the N.C.A.A. is Seantrel Henderson, an offensive lineman who is considered by most analysts to be the nation’s top high school football recruit this year.

Henderson announced his commitment to U.S.C. on national signing day, Feb. 3. But he did not sign a letter of intent because he and his father, Sean, said they wanted to gain a sense of what penalties the Trojans might face.

Sean Henderson said he expected his son to sign a letter of intent before April 1, the last day to sign.

“What we’re doing now is taking the more realistic look at the fact that we may not be informed by the time we sign,” Sean Henderson said in a telephone interview. “We may have to trust our guts and go with what we think is best at the end of the day.”

In addition to U.S.C., the N.C.A.A. has a lot at stake in the case. The[..]ociation, which has been mocked for fostering lawlessness with toothless enforcement in revenue-producing sports, could be seen as taking a stand against one of college sports’ biggest cash cows. After all, if it is true that Bush’s family took a house from would-be marketers, as Yahoo Sports reported, then what is to stop any recruit from holding out his hand?

The Trojans have already self-punished their men’s basketball team, barring it from postseason play this season and imposing scholarship losses and recruiting restrictions. It will be up to the N.C.A.A. to decide if that is enough. The former coach Tim Floyd and two of his U.S.C.[..]istants appeared before the committee Saturday; Floyd said it was the “right thing to do.”

The large-scale importance of the fate of Trojans basketball, though, pales beside that of Trojans football and the athletic department as a whole. And until the N.C.A.A. announces a verdict, all Kiffin and the Trojans can do is sit and await their fate.

They ain't doing !! to USC. That's the NCAA's darling program