The NCAA is letting some USC Juniors and Seniors to transfer without having to sit out a year.
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Juniors and seniors to-be on the USC Trojans' football team, hit with a two-year postseason ban among other punishments, will be allowed to transfer to other FBS programs without having to sit out a season, the NCAA clarified to ESPN on Friday.
"The second school would have to submit a waiver asking to waive the year in residence, but NCAA rules allow for this waiver to be granted if a student-athlete's first school has a postseason ban in their sport," NCAA spokeswoman Stacey Osburn said in an e-mail to ESPN's Joe Schad.
The rule does not apply to freshman who have signed national letters of intent, however. But schools with an interest in a USC junior or senior are allowed to initiate contact with the player, Osburn said.
NCAA report
The NCAA released a 67-page report detailing its findings in an investigation of the USC athletic program. Read it here. Report
• USC's Dec. '09 response to NCAA
The NCAA threw the book at USC on Thursday with a two-year bowl ban, four years' probation, loss of scholarships and forfeits of an entire year's games for improper benefits to Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush dating to the Trojans' 2004 national championship.
USC was penalized for a lack of institutional control in the ruling by the NCAA following its four-year investigation. The report cited numerous improper benefits for Bush and former basketball player O.J. Mayo, who spent just one year with the Trojans.
Among juniors and seniors whom the transfer rule applies to are quarterback Mitch Mustain, running backs C.J. Gable and Marc Tyler, receiver David Ausberry, cornerback T.J. Bryant, tight end Blake Ayles, safety Drew McAllister and center Michael Reardon.
First-year coach Lane Kiffin said Thursday he hadn't heard from any schools with possible interest in a USC player.
When asked if he's concerned about some of his juniors and seniors transferring, Kiffin said, "If someone wants to leave the best place in the country to play football, we won't stop them."
The coaches who presided over the alleged misdeeds -- football's Pete Carroll and basketball's Tim Floyd -- left USC in the past year.
The penalties include the loss of 30 football scholarships over three years and vacating 14 victories in which Bush played from December 2004 through the 2005 season.
USC beat Oklahoma in the BCS title game on Jan. 4, 2005, and won 12 games during Bush's Heisman-winning 2005 season, which ended with a loss to Texas in the 2006 BCS title game.
The BCS is likely to force Southern California to vacate its national championship. BCS executive director Bill Hancock says in a statement Thursday that the presidential oversight committee will meet soon to discuss whether USC will be stripped of its title.
If that happens, there will be no BCS champion for the 2004-05 season. Hancock said no action would be taken by the BCS until the appeal is heard.
USC reaction
Living with scholarship cuts and bowl bans is severe. But the coaches who have endured those conditions say there are steps USC can take, writes ESPN.com's Ivan Maisel. Story
The NCAA threw down the gauntlet, as ESPN.com's Ted Miller details. The penalties exceed in severity sanctions Alabama received in 2002 and Washington in 1993. Blog
A whole lot of people didn't see the shock-and-awe punishment coming, but the NCAA's message was thunderous. There's a smoking crater in L.A. to prove it, Pat Forde writes. Story
• USC basketball deals with sanctions
The NCAA says Bush received lavish gifts from two fledgling sports marketers hoping to sign him. The men paid for everything from hotel stays and a rent-free home where Bush's family apparently lived to a limousine and a new suit when he accepted his Heisman in New York in December 2005.
The NCAA found that Bush, identified as a "former football student-athlete," was ineligible beginning at least by December 2004, a ruling that could open discussion on the revocation of the New Orleans Saints star's Heisman. Members of the Heisman Trust have said they might review Bush's award if he was ruled ineligible by the NCAA.
USC athletic director Mike Garrett, speaking at a previously scheduled USC Coaches' Tour at the Airport Marriott in Burlingame, Calif., had this to say Thursday to boosters: "As I read the decision by the NCAA, all I could get out of all of this was ... I read between the lines, and there was nothing but a lot of envy, and they wish they all were Trojans."
While the bowl ban is the most damaging to Kiffin, who will have to ratchet up his formidable recruiting skills to tempt players with no hope of postseason play before 2012, USC also will lose 30 scholarships over a three-year period, 10 annually from 2011 to '13.
"We've had contact with a number of our signees today, a number of their families," Kiffin said Thursday. "We have had great response from them about their excitement about joining our program and continuing USC's championship level of play.
"I told the team, and I made sure they understood, that this is something happening to them that's adversity. Football, we talk about all the time, is about adversity, as is life. Our older players have played in a lot of bowl games. Our fifth-year seniors, a number of them have won a number of bowl games already, have played in three Rose Bowl championships."
USC is the first Football Bowl Subdivision school to be banned from postseason play since Alabama served a two-year ban ending in 2003. The NCAA issued no bowl bans during the tenure of late president Myles Brand, but the NCAA reportedly regained interest in the punishment over the past year.
"The real issue here is if you have high-profile players that your enforcement staff has to monitor," said Paul Dee, chairman of the NCAA's committee on infractions.
"It is extremely likely that the people who are receiving these interactions outside the institution are going to receive a bigger reward," Dee added. "So higher-profile players require higher-profile monitoring."
Information from ESPNLosAngeles.com's Mark Saxson and The Associated Press was included in this report.
