Who needs a Heisman Trophy anyway? We still have our memories of Reggie Bush

You ever see a Heisman Trophy?

It’s a monstrosity.

So where do you put it in your house?

You display it, and anyone who drops by notices your ego is as big as your monstrosity.

You don’t put it out, and what’s the point of having it in the first place, which pretty much explains as far as I can tell why Bush gave it up.

Over the years I’ve chosen not to win awards because how would it look to have them hanging all over my house? Why would I want my house to look exactly like Plaschke’s?

Bush, of course, never seemed to have any problem getting a house, so you would think he could have had one just for his monstrosity — maybe his parents watching it for him.

But then maybe someone told him they were about to take it back, and how would it look with his mom and dad draped all over it as they dragged the monstrosity from the house?

How would it look with Kim Kardashian draped all over it? Sorry, just daydreaming there for a minute, and I know they aren’t together anymore, but a man can dream.

Anyway, I think about all those sensational, knee-slapping plays made by Bush in a Trojans uniform, and as much as I have tried to purge them from my mind, I cannot.

I thought Keyshawn Johnson was the best college player I ever saw until Bush came along.

Bush is a reason why most of us enjoy sports so much — all that God-given talent allowing us to think of nothing else in life for a few minutes other than maybe the next play going all the way.

A tug-of-war over a piece of hardware, very much like the one that sits in Heritage Hall with O.J. Simpson’s name on it, doesn’t change any of that.

Now I know there’s a lot of moral indignation out there because amazingly there are still a number of newspaper columnists employed.

Everyone seems in a lather because Bush hasn’t apologized, but if he doesn’t, do you really think it will prevent him one day from setting up a card table like Anthony Davis on game day and selling his autograph?

I would think if anyone needs to apologize, it’s Matt Leinart for being a stiff.

Maybe a Bush apology is important to Trojans fans, the strangest things important to some of these people, who really do need a life beyond the message boards and the notion everyone else wishes they were a Trojan.

Does it really make a difference whether Bush can return to USC on good terms? Sure, if he can carry the ball and help beat Oregon.

Hey, everyone had tons of fun during the cheating days at USC. Trojans everywhere should be sending Bush thank-you cards.

Who needs an apology? Is this all about revenge, making sure Bush feels remorse or embarrassment for getting USC in trouble?

I give you the choice of running a completely clean program and finishing where you may, or ruling the college football world as USC did and running amuck with the NCAA, and tell me you wouldn’t take what just happened to USC?

Don’t even try to tell me you would want to be like UCLA.

And why would anyone think Bush is sorry, his parents getting a financial boost and here he is making a good living in New Orleans playing for the defending Super Bowl champions?

It’s pretty clear now the only reason he would say he’s sorry is to make the Trojans faithful feel better, or maybe mitigate the embarrassment attached to dropping a monstrosity off at the post office and asking them to wrap it for him.

It’s only a matter of time before none of this matters.

Pete Carroll welcomed Simpson back to the Orange Bowl practice field, and maybe that can’t happen for Bush the next four years with the NCAA hovering over USC, but you watch — there will come a day when Lane Kiffin’s replacement is seen hugging Bush before a Las Vegas Bowl.

WE WERE standing a few feet away from Simpson’s Heisman Trophy, which stands next to Leinart’s, surprisingly the school not placing covers over them like they might a bird cage at night.

We were probably standing close to where Bush’s trophy once sat, the ideal setting in Heritage Hall to meet the school’s chief compliance officer, David Roberts.

I wondered how many compliance officers were running around USC now that the school is known for cheating, and Roberts said eight, while admitting that number will grow. The folks in Tennessee probably understand why.

A few minutes earlier I had been talking to Kiffin, the two of us sitting on a bench outside Heritage Hall when interrupted by a mother and her son.

The woman told Kiffin her senior son had just scored a touchdown and he could play for USC, as a walk-on if necessary.

I was stunned, the woman going on and on in front of a columnist, possibly a violation, and all the time I’m thinking any second now one of USC’s FBI consultants or compliance officers is going to take her down with a stun gun.

“They’re all out to lunch,” Kiffin explained, which goes to show you — you can never have too many compliance officers at USC.

t.j.simers@latimes.com