My opinions about Reggie Bush

   As everyone knows, the topic of the week has been Reggie Bush and what has been happening with what is going to happen to the Heisman Trophy and yesterday it was resolved.  On Tuesday afternoon, Bush announced that he will forfeit his Heisman Trophy.  On Wednesday afternoon, the Heisman Trust announced that the award will be vacated and NOT go to Vince Young, who finished second that year in the Heisman voting. 

   Unlike voting for other events, the Heisman Trophy is an award that is based off of a player's performance that entire year.  And there is no doubt that Reggie Bush put up stats that were more than deserving of the Trophy.  Now, if the award had been handed out after the National Championship Game, it may have gone the other way, after the incredible game Young had against Bush's Trojans in an upset win.  Bush accumulated 789 first place votes; Young had 79.  Would the tally have been different had they done it in mid-January?  Possibly and maybe probably, but there is no doubt that the 1,740 rushing yards, 16 rushing touchdowns, 4788 receiving yards and two receiving touchdowns earned him the award.  Oh, did I mention ZERO fumbles????

   Reggie Bush did the right thing.  He gave up an award that should never been his.  I know earlier I made it sound like he deserved it and in 2005-2006 he did.  But that was 2005-2006.  At the time, nobody but Bush and his family knew about the money and gifts that he chose to accept.  So at the time, it made sense to award him the trophy.  But now with all of the allegations (and apparently truths) that have surfaced, they have shown that in actuality Bush should have been declared ineligible to play, therefore nullifying all of the stats and awards he earned that season.  Your numbers don't count if you shouldn't even be allowed to step onto the field.  But as the Heisman Trust said, it's five years later.  There is no way to re-do the vote.  The best thing to do is keep the award vacated.

   The people to truly feel sorry for in this case are the current players at USC.  Many of them probably came to USC because of Bush and the success they saw the team have while he was there.  But now those players who came to follow in his footsteps are paying for his transgressions.  To me and many others, it's an unfair thing that the NCAA Has done, but the university will have to live with the consequences, whether they knew what was going on or not.  Going to a bowl game is one perk many players look forward to when they commit to a school and the fact that many of the current players won't have that opportunity for two years is something that will hurt recruiting.  Not to mention the loss of 30 scholarships over the next three years.

   The sad thing is that this happens much more than we all know of, but not everyone gets caught.  It's become a game of 'if you can do it w/o getting caught, continue doing it.'  You would think that stories like this would give other athletes thoughts of stopping all of this because of all of the trouble it can cost them, but they also see that if they do do it, it most likely won't effect them or the school until they are long gone. 

   But again, the issue was the Heisman Trophy and what to do with it.  Reggie Bush did the right thing.  And so did the Heisman Trust...