Reggie Bush and West Coast Bias

I'm sitting here watching Fox (a wonderful sports network, kidding) canonize Reggie Bush for the New Orleans Saints. For those that don't know, Bush was a running back for USC from '03-'05 where he won a National Championship and a Heisman. In 2007 Yahoo! Sports broke a story that Bush's family lived in a multi-million dollar home in southern California rent-free that was supplied by an agent. It is 2010 and USC has yet to be punished. The NCAA is dragging their feet for some reason. I believe they are because USC is their flagship west coast program. If they take down USC in L.A., who is going to step up and be the class of the west coast? Oregon State? Stanford? or Boise State, a team that 10 years ago was making the jump to division 1-A football? It's obvious the NCAA doesn't want this to happen. One other interesting point about this surrounds Ohio State, of course. In 2002 Ohio State won the National Championship and Maurice Clarrett was the freshman stud running back. During the week leading up the NC game in Arizona, one of Clarrett's friends was killed. Clarrett asked Ohio State pay for his flight back to Ohio to attend the funeral. NCAA rules prohibited this. Immediately after the NC game, Clarrett left the locker room immediately and began a time in Ohio State football's history that most of us will not forget. Clarrett got into some legal issues, attempted to turn pro two years too early, and never played for OSU again. Clarrett did an interview with ESPN the Magazine (journalistic swill) and accused OSU of cheating. The NCAA launched a major investigation that led to no football penalties and a one year ban on men's basketball post-season play. ESPN had major egg on its face for publicizng an emotionally and mentally unstable Clarrett's opinions. Ever since that day OSU has received no love from Bristol, CT (home of ESPN). Then in 2007, Yahoo! Sports an admittedly minor player in sports journalism broke the Bush case, ESPN has yet to totally get on the bus for the accusations brought to light by Yahoo!. For 3 years now, nothing has come from this because of the NCAA's unwillingness to hurt it's only major football program on the west coast and ESPN's gun-shy attitude towards taking a shot at another major college football program.