First USC Defector
If the problem had been isolated to the football program, but since it was across two major sports I think it's appropriate. The precedents you're talking about weren't institution wide, and I think that's why the NCAA hammered USC the way they did. I'm glad, frankly.
To me the actions of the basketball program are much more punishable. Everybody knew Mayo was on the take while still in high school and many programs shied away. When compliance brought up the issue and Mayo's known relationship with Guillory, Floyd pretty much said, "Don't worry about it," and Garrett took this as gospel.
Compare that to football where nothing really became public until after Bush left SC (in a case where again only one player was involved) and the only connection even alleged between anyone else at the school and Lake/Michaels is one of them calling Todd McNair and supposedly saying, "Tell Reggie to pay us back or we are going to tell everybody about this and bring down your program."
Yet SC football got more than double the sanctions that basketball did. To me this shows just how arbitrary the decision was. This is even more evident when reading the bylaw blog post Brian just linked to where he says basically the top priority was hammering SC football, rather than investigating and making an impartial decision based on the facts.
I was going to say that I thought basketball should have gotten hit much harder than they did. The penalty was harsh, no doubt, but SC was basically taunting the NCAA, daring them to impose harsher penalties.
What do you think Michigan's punishment should have been in the Ed Martin case? By any measure the extent of the violations and the school's culpability were far worse (Fisher and his staff had a longstanding relationship with Martin). Yet the sanctions were much softer than what SC football got and close to what SC basketball got for lesser violations.
And if you need the two sport double-whammy to come up with a harsher punishment, feel free to imagine that the NCAA actually investigated Charles Woodson's relationship with his future agent and found the sorts of things that an investigation of that type could be expected to turn up (I'm sure there is a photo of Lloyd Carr and Marion Darnell Jones together at the Heisman ceremony somewhere).
And if you need the two sport double-whammy to come up with a harsher punishment, feel free to imagine that the NCAA actually investigated Charles Woodson's relationship with his future agent and found the sorts of things that an investigation of that type could be expected to turn up (I'm sure there is a photo of Lloyd Carr and Marion Darnell Jones together at the Heisman ceremony somewhere).
But they didn't...
I do have to go back to the point of the infractions being spread across two programs, for a significant timespan.
Come home, we have a spot for you.
Arkansas.
Pine Bluff.
Where he will ride the pine behind Mallet.