Can We Expect The NCAA To Treat Old Evidence With New Respect?

USC's Rivals team is doing a thoroughly self-satisfied hatchet job on the NCAA Committee on Infractions' recent report of their investigation into assorted Trojan athletics misdeeds. Their latest salvo: a 2005 photograph of scapegoated coach Todd McNair with Reggie Bush's eligibility defilers, Lloyd Lake and Michael Michaels. This is adorably juxtaposed with the infamous shot of Vice President Biden and the Salahis, in the interest of demonstrating that sometimes people with merely coincidental real-world connections end up on film together.

And jolly fun as this all is, it's not the point. What's crucial to remember here is that, by USCFootball.com's own admission, the COI had already been made aware of these "inconsistencies and errors by the enforcement staff," four months before the ruling was handed down. My point remains unaltered from one I made last Friday: If they didn't sway matters when first brought to the NCAA's attention in February, holes in cases being publicized now, however tangible they turn out to be, aren't going to make that much difference when asking the Committee to overturn its own ruling. (Or are they?)