USC Gets Over That Whole Cheating Thing, Honors Pete Carroll

You can’t call him Cheaty Petey anymore. It’s Dr. Cheaty Petey to you. He didn’t finish seven years of cheating school not to be called Doctor!

That’s right, USC Athletic Director Pat Haden, hailed universally as a paragon of integrity and class, has seen fit to induct Pete Carroll into the USC Hall of Fame and to award him an honorary degree.

Yes, this is indeed the same Pete Carroll who skipped town amid rumors of violations and impending sanctions, leaving the USC football team to deal with the following penalties*:

UCLA Bruins

• The last two wins of the 2004 season were vacated, including the Orange Bowl/BCS title game win against Oklahoma.
• Consequently USC forfeited its 2004 BCS title.
• The entire 2005 season was vacated.
• USC was banned from postseason play (bowl games and conference championship games) in 2010 and 2011.
• USC was docked 30 scholarships over three years.
• Reggie Bush voluntarily gave up his 2005 Heisman Trophy, which remains ‘vacant’.

This is the same Pete Carroll whose team was so infiltrated by “sports marketers” and agents that the NCAA cited the program for “a lack of institutional control.”

But that was then, and this is now. The USC Athletic Department assumes you’ve forgotten all about that. The smoke from the crater left by the Lane Kiffin years makes it hard to see back that far anyway. Now he’s just Pete Carroll, bringer of light, font of everlasting youthfulness, and two-time national champion.

Except…the champions of the seasons Carroll was with USC are as follows: Miami (’01), Ohio State (’02), LSU (’03), vacant (’04), Texas (’05), Florida (’06), LSU (’07), Florida (’08), and Alabama (’09). So I’m not sure where the USC Athletic Department is finding these two secret titles. The last legitimate title I see for USC is 1978. Maybe Carroll was an unlisted grad assistant for John McKay.

It hasn’t been made public, but I hear that Tim Floyd will be getting his honorary diploma in an unmarked, white envelope delivered via SUV.

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* Yes, the documents released by the NCAA earlier this year show that the investigators overstepped their bounds in pursuing then-USC running backs coach Todd McNair. However, Reggie Bush’s ineligibility is not in question, and the relevant 2004 and 2005 games remain vacated.