USC Football: Twitter reacts harshly to NCAA ruling on North Carolina

The news that North Carolina escaped NCAA punishment for academic fraud sent USC Football Twitter into a rage on Friday.

On Friday the NCAA concluded that North Carolina did not commit infractions relating to their academic fraud scandal and USC Twitter was not happy about it at all.

The Tar Heels have been under investigation going back three years, not quite as long as the four-year investigation into USC, but close. At the heart of the investigation: Was UNC’s athletic department responsible for funneling student-athletes to sham classes arranged by the African-American Studies department from 1993-2011?

Short answer? No.

Here’s the NCAA’s explanation:

Essentially, North Carolina argued that the athletics department played no role in the academic deficiencies of the African-American Studies department. Since the classes, which were disproportionately filled with athletes, were available to the general student body at UNC, no violations occurred.

And the NCAA agreed. Or at the very least, failed to find a loophole in their own rules to properly punish North Carolina’s own use of a loophole in the rulebook, deferring to schools to determine what does and doesn’t count as academic fraud.

Unsurprisingly, Twitter as a whole and USC Twitter, in particular, took umbrage with the ruling. After all, the Trojans only just finished sanctions relating to the Reggie Bush scandal. The Heisman Trophy-winning running back and his family received benefits from a would-be agent and USC was hit with a two-year bowl ban and loss of 30 scholarships over three years.

The NCAA told the Trojans they “should have known” about the Bush family’s rent-free living in San Diego, 150 miles away. The NCAA told North Carolina that they had no responsibility for knowing about classes

not

being held on their campus.

Here’s how Twitter reacted to the news:

With sanctions over and no hope of getting anything back for them, all USC fans can hang their hat on is the ongoing lawsuit by former assistant Todd McNair against the NCAA. The question is, how many more schools will see infractions reports come and go before that matter is resolved?