Alabama’s loss is USC’s gain ... for now

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Alabama has lost an appeal of an NCAA ruling that strips the Crimson Tide of 21 football victories from 2005-07 and victories in three other sports for widespread violations involving free textbooks.

Among the victories no longer on the books for Alabama is the Cotton Bowl win over Texas Tech following the 2005 season. That means the Tide now has only 31 all-time bowl victories -- which puts USC alone at the top of the college football heap with 32 all-time bowl wins.

Of course, USC fans might not want to take too much pleasure in Alabama’s misery. After all, the Trojans have some NCAA issues of their own still being sorted out. It’s been more than a month since USC’s hearing before the NCAA Committee on Infractions, but the results still may not be announced for another several weeks.

Time will tell what may or may not be stripped away from the USC record books. But for now, Trojans fans can enjoy being No. 1.

-- Chuck Schilken