Texecutioner
Hall of Fame
Oh I agree that the NCAA has been notoriously limp dicked in terms of trying to find and investigate violations of their own code of any kind. However, USC getting punished, even if it's way way later than what I would've liked, I still consider a victory in terms of trying to bring to light how shameful these academic institutions are when it comes to athletics.
I agree with everything you're saying and I'm glad that they finally got at least some sort of punishment. It was getting more and more pathetic by the day that USC got to keep going with business as usual when that Reggie Bush and OJ Mayo issues were as large as they were and constantly reported all over the media. Hell, a ton of stuff I read about the Reggie Bush case had all sorts of wild stuff going on with thugs showing up to depositions and trying to scare away the investigators and all sorts of random stuff.
Here is another thing to consider though. The media plays a big role in this kind of thing as well. If the media doesn't report all of these investigations and infractions, we really don't hear about a lot of this stuff. The media stayed all over these stories with USC. What if the media hadn't been all over this from day one and continued on about it for the last 3 years? What are the odds that USC might not have ever gotten punished? I'd say that those odds are probably pretty damn high. My guess is that certain NCAA officials probably would have been payed off by USC boosters or execs and this would have gone away fairly quietly. The media stomped all over this thing though and wouldn't let it go away, so eventually something had to happen and Pete Carroll obviously felt like the time was near.