We all remember the stories and coverage that came almost solely from Yahoo! covering the fact that Reggie Bush and his family received benefits from agents and others that were courting him.
This, of course, occurred throughout his time on campus at USC. Yahoo!’s coverage was excellent (here’s an article as a primer for what was going on), but it did nothing to further the cause of integrity inside of the NCAA amateur ranks. The NCAA to date has done nothing and likely will do nothing, ever, when it comes to this situation.
Let’s be clear. At this point, there’s printed proof that Bush was taking money from people while he was on campus. He also never attempted to make good on his promises to the people paying him that he’d use them as agents (which means nothing other than the fact that he's as worthless a human as he is a #2 overall draft pick - he can't even cheat honestly). This is why these pseudo-agents went public and provided documentation and information about Bush taking payments. Meanwhile, Bush went on to win the Heisman, an award for amateurs, and competed for two national titles, winning one. Pete Carroll played stupid, as did the USC program, and the NCAA is too weak and willfully toothless to do anything. USC appears simply too important as a program to be honestly punished.
In addition to the Bush payoffs (and similar documents and reports about basketball star OJ Mayo's cheating), USC’s seemingly been corrupt since Carroll’s arrival in the way they handle street agents. One of the most poorly understood aspects of the recruiting game is how some athletes are delivered to campuses through handlers.
We’ve discussed it at length on this site, basically leading the coverage among the CFB sites. You can read about it here (the initial rip on it by me); here (a follow-up rip on it by TaylorTRoom) ; and here (more expounding on the nonsense by Scipio Tex).
What’s rarely ever discussed by ESPN or the other media outlets is the actual street agent phenomenon. Perhaps they don’t understand. Rivals, of course, certainly does, and they willfully ignore it and act as if it doesn’t exist within their coverage. Scout and ESPN Recruiting do not do any better. The only real way to get your head fully around the street agent game, have a conversation with parents of players being recruited, or various recruiting gurus paid to understand the space, and you'll hear very real stories about the agent game and who's playing it.
Regardless, one of the biggest winners in the street agent game is Pete Carroll and USC. They’ve supposedly been buying players indirectly for years. The guys they hurt when they play this game, besides the players, who are effectively a part of a modern slave trade, are guys like Joe Paterno, who’s seen the fertile New Jersey area raided by Carroll through agents, and guys like Mack Brown, who’s seen similar things happen in Texas as Carroll comes in and grabs guys. They’re losing players to USC because they’re not willing to cheat, not because they don’t throw dummies off of buildings for Halloween pranks.
Will Lyles Thinks Pete Carroll is an Awesome Guy
Well, the beat goes on to this day for one of the dirtiest programs in college football. News has now broken that Joe McKnight, a player taken out of Louisiana out from underneath LSU and the rest of the entirely dirty SEC, imagine that, is driving a car that he didn’t pay for. He’s been doing it for a while.
What will happen next?
Probably nothing. USC will act surprised and make claims that they’ll investigate it internally. Just as they did in regard to Bush and OJ Mayo. USC will choose to do nothing. McKnight will probably declare for the NFL after performing well and unpunished in a bowl game, and he’ll never comment on being a cheater again.
And the rest of us? Well, we all lose. We have to continue to play by the rules and watch pieces of garbage like “nice guy” Pete Carroll and his program work their asses off with their wallets to get back where they rightfully belong – in a position to beat Stanford.