USC football: School appeals NCAA sanctions

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USC has filed an appeal to the NCAA asking that certain penalties recently imposed upon the Trojans athletic program be reduced.

USC is asking that a two-year bowl ban be reduced to one year and that the loss of 10 football scholarships per year be reduced to five per year.

‘The University recognizes that violations of NCAA rules did occur, especially involving impermissible benefits going to student athletes as well as their friends and families, from unscrupulous sports agents and sports marketers,’ Todd Dickey, USC’s senior vice president of administration, said in a statement on the school’s website.

‘And we take full responsibility for those violations given that they happened on our watch. However, we disagree with many of the findings in the report from the NCAA Committee on Infractions and assert that the penalties imposed are too severe for the violations identified and are inconsistent with precedent in similar cases.’

I’ll have more later at latimes.com/sports.

--Gary Klein