"Reggie Bush's House" (is what you're gonna hear)

I'm a USC graduate (class of 1987), and though I have followed USC football since my freshman year, my passion (along with the passion of a few hundred thousand other alums) was restored when Pete Carroll, Norm Chow and Carson Palmer brought the team back to greatness. After Palmer left for the NFL, Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush improved on his pace, culminating one of the great three-year spans of the last 50 years: An AP Championshiop, followed by a an AP/BCS Championship, followed by a heart-ripping 41-38 loss to Vince Young and a great Texas team in the latest BCS Championship game, the 2006 Rose Bowl. The Irish Trojan and Boi from Troy have cornered the USC football market thus far--I'll see what I can add.

With that out of the way, we come to the subject of Reggie Bush's family's house , owned by a California businessman apparently interested in steering the Griffins (Bush's family) toward a particular agent. Unless some kind of reasonable rent was paid by the Bushes, this is probably a violation of NCAA rules. The story in ESPN.com is a part of the second wave, in which the Bushes and the businessman deny any wrongdoing and Reggie denies all knowledge.

The worst case scenario (forfeiture of all 12 2005 victories, loss of the Bush's Heisman) is, at this moment, we are told, probably off the table.

Four thoughts:

1. Any Trojan fan who saw the Vince Bowl would agree with me: going from 12-1 to 0-13 wouldn't hurt half as much as going from 12-0 to 12-1 did, especially if the championship seasons of 2003 and 2004 remain intact.

2. Tucked away in the story, following Bush's profession of ignorance, is this passage: "NCAA rules prohibit student-athletes and their families from receiving extra benefits from agents or their representatives. It can be a violation even if Bush had no knowledge of the transaction."

That is, if Bush neither did anything wrong nor knew of any wrongdoing, both he and the school on the hook for whatever punishment is meted out. Ah: once again, the NCAA demonstrates it runs third to the United Nations and the International Olympic Committee in retrograde, small-minded thinking.

3. The Houston Texans, my local NFL team (though not my favorite; I've been a Patriots fan since--stop laughing--since Jim Plunkett) owns the number one overall pick in this weekend's NFL draft. It is no secret that they have leaned toward drafting Heisman-winner Bush, in preference to defensive stud Mario Williams and quaterback/hometown hero/Rose Bowl MVP Vince Young. (The Texans' presumptive theory is that they already have their quarterback of the future, David Carr, and besides just committed themselves financially to Carr for the foreseeable future.) Five days from the NFL Draft, with Bush's agents in close negotiations with the Houston Texans, this story complicates things. Bush, is, I believe, the best choice for the Texans (I will listen to arguments for Young, Williams, et al, but remain unconvinced). Understand: Young has all but begged the Texans to draft him, and a significant number of Houstonians are huge Longhorn fans coming off maybe the greatest season in team history, in no small part due to Young. If the Texans want Bush, fine: but they will have to sell him, trumpets blaring, to a significant number of people who are dead-set against him. (Some local group cut a song called "Pick Vince," for God's sake). The Texans faced the real possibility of outright booing at dozens of draft parties around the city--and this was before this mess. Now?

4. There is a reason that the silly season in politics (Carter's briefing book in 1983, Cindy Sheehan last year) is August: everyone goes home from DC save the journalists, who have nothing to write about, so they seize and obsess over every crumb that comes their way. The silly season in the NFL is between the Combine and Draft Day, when sports radio jocks and fans bore even themselves to death brooding over things they know nothing about. (Peyton v. Ryan? Remember when that was the hot topic?) Something like this house business, for the moment a matter for concern but not yet a crisis, will--in the absence of any new information, without one shred of a formal charge--be the new thing everyone can roll in, so that by Saturday no one will be able to say "Reggie Bush" without having to say, "trailed by scandal," "the subject of an investigation," or whatnot. Not good for Reggie.

Boi From Troy has his take.

Update:The Irish Trojan chimes in with a ton of links.