USC: University of Serial Cheaters?

When U$C whipped Penn State in the 2009 Rose Bowl, the talent gap was obvious. But was it legitimate?

Jason Cole and Charles Robinson of Yahoo! Sports report on big problems in Los Angeles...

NCAA investigators appear to be building a case to show the University of Southern California has demonstrated a lack of institutional control and failure to monitor some aspects of its football and men’s basketball programs, multiple sources interviewed in the probe told Yahoo! Sports.

The NCAA’s investigation began in April 2006 and intensified after Yahoo! Sports reported allegations of improper benefits received by former USC running back and 2005 Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush and his family. The NCAA probe has widened to include former Trojans basketball star O.J. Mayo, who played for USC in the 2007-2008 season and led the team to the NCAA tournament. Yahoo! Sports has learned the NCAA investigation has also come to encompass various facets of USC’s compliance structure and the upper reaches of the school’s athletics department.

“I think [lack of institutional control] would be a very accurate interpretation of the angle the NCAA took in questioning,” said attorney David Murphy, who represents former Mayo confidant Louis Johnson. Johnson was a central figure in an ESPN report in May 2008 chronicling more than $200,000 in alleged improper benefits received by Mayo and Rodney Guillory, a sports agency recruiter. Johnson has been interviewed by the NCAA on two occasions, including one six-hour session in June of 2008 and another one-hour teleconference this past Friday regarding his latest allegation – that USC men’s basketball coach Tim Floyd made a cash payment of at least $1,000 to Guillory in February 2007.

Asked if there was any way that USC could not have known of the financial relationship between Mayo and Guillory, Murphy said: “It is humanly impossible for them to not have known.”

That sentiment mirrors statements by Lloyd Lake, who has alleged he helped give Bush and Bush’s family nearly $300,000 in benefits when Bush was still at USC. Lake has filed a civil suit against Bush over the alleged benefits. Lake told Yahoo! Sports in 2008: “People at USC knew. How could they not? We were in the locker room. Some of their [coaches] were there when we partied with him. They saw the things we had [given] him.”

If the NCAA finds USC lacked institutional control and/or failed to monitor in the cases of Mayo and Bush, the school could face stiff penalties including probation, revocation of victories and possible loss of scholarships in both the basketball and football programs.

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