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A guest post from Amy Lamare at GridironGoddess.net.

Well fellow USC fans, this is it. Right now the USC contingent is in Indianapolis getting ready to plead our case to the NCAA on Saturday. I am sure you, like me, are doing every good juju, good mojo, let the sanctions lift dance you can.

Dudes, I don’t know what to think. If I approach it rationally, I think we have an excellent chance at winning our appeal. USC seeks to have the sanctions basically reduced by half. Meaning we’d be bowl eligible next year, in the first year of the new Pac-12 which I happen to believe is VERY important and could set the tone for the new conference for years to come if USC is not eligible to participate in the Pac-12 championship (should we get to that game) or bowl games.

But since when has logic and rationality ever applied to the NC “We favor the $EC” AA?” I know my fellow Trojans feel me on this. To be slapped with “lack of institutional control” and then to sit through a sanctioned season and watch Cam Newton get away with claiming he had no idea what his Daddy did, and see tOSU players sanctioned and UNC sanctioned and USC freshman Dillon Baxter suffer through 10 days of ineligibility for catching a ride with a FELLOW STUDENT who just happened to be sanctioned as an agent by the NFLPA. First of all, NO STUDENTS should be credentialed NFLPA agents but second of all… it is a little fucking hard to slap USC with ‘lack of institutional control’ when the problem is so pervasive and so many incidences came to national prominence this year.

I mean have you READ the Allegations Against Auburn ? (READ it, is FASCINATING!!!) The FBI alerted the NCAA to the improprieties for fuck’s sake. And yes, is all hearsay, but if Reggie Bush taught us anything, where there are rumors, there is truth. And also, is about so much more than Cam. Cam is MINOR in the scope of the potential Auburn woes. We’re talking expulsion from the SEC. We’re talking Death Penalty… IF, and it is a BIG IF is proven. For those who will say “of course Auburn won’t be sanctioned, they are the $EC” — well, I agree.

However, go watch the ESPN 30 for 30 film Pony Excess about SMU. Back in the 80s, the old Southwest Conference was equivalent to the SEC today. And let me make it clear, I have no beef against Auburn. But I am fascinated by the Death Penalty and reading that Tiger Droppings article stokes my inner sick train wreck fascination with it.

So all of that (wine fueled) tangent aside, my point IS: all of that makes the allegations against Reggie Bush and USC look like child’s play. And though the NCAA Appeal policy is not to consider anything that has happened since – either at the school or in the sport — I maintain that these people are HUMAN and the organization as a whole runs a very real risk of making a complete joke of themselves.

Even J.K. McKay, USC’s Associate Athletic Director for Football has said: “Our primary contention is, given what we were found to have done, these are the harshest penalties ever meted out. When you compare them to other cases, probably unduly harsh, and we think they should be lessened.”

USC has gotten rid of Mike Garrett, Pete Carroll and Todd McNair (though I feel McNair was railroaded, but that’s another post). Lane Kiffin has been positively angelic this year. Pat Haden is toeing the line and saying and doing all the right things.

Based on all of this info and more, pretty much all rational people looking at the situation believe that USC has a chance to win at least a part of their appeal. The OC Register is reporting that a Florida based lawyer thinks USC will get back a portion of the scholarships but the post-season ban will be upheld.

Um, that’s not my feeling. Granted, I am not an expert, just a passionate fan. I feel like if the NCAA wants to save face at all, that we’ll see 50 percent of the scholarships restored and based on the half-reduction in sanctions there be eligible for post-season play in the 2011 season. I believe that the probation period will be upheld. Again, I am not an expert and am in fact highly biased.

Athletic director Pat Haden, a USC alum and former Trojan football player along with new USC president Max Nikias will be a part of the team presenting USC’s appeal on Saturday. Haden is cool as ice under pressure and Nikias is composed yet passionate. Nikias and Haden have hired many compliance officers for USC’s previously grossly understaffed compliance department, making it one of the best, if not the best (late, wine, my pizza just arrived, not looking it up) staffed compliance offices in FBS/Division 1 sports.

All we can do is sit and wait. In typical slow as a damn dinosaur NCAA fashion, after USC’s one-day appeal hearing, the NCAA can take up to six weeks to render its decision. This appeal is the only avenue USC has left. If upheld, well, the NCAA sends a HUGE message, and not necessarily a fair one.

Since the NCAA moves so slowly– let’s look down the road five or six years– and let’s say the Auburn Allegations and LaMichael James of Oregon allegations are proven true and sanctioned. It will turn out this year’s Heisman and BCS National Champions, and BCS Championship Game will all need asterisks next to them. And that is just wrong. The NCAA is in no way able to enforce the rules that they set in any reasonable amount of time. I mean for fuck’s sake, the kids at USC now were in JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL when Reggie Bush played. It is just, well, for an organization that prides itself on leveling the field of play so all schools have a chance — it is NOT FAIR.

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