Despite the problems that Reggie Bush had with the NCAA in his college years, the player has been chosen for the hall of immortality
Reggie Bushwhose triumph for the Trophy Heisman when he played for Southern California in 2005 was vacated due to NCAA violations, he is among 18 players in the final College Football Hall of Fame class announced Monday.
Florida quarterback Tim Tebow, who won the Heisman in 2007, was also voted into the Hall by the National Football Foundation, along with Syracuse’s Dwight Freeney; Luke Kuechly of Boston University; LaMichael James of Oregon; and Michael Bishop from Kansas State.
Reggie Bush played on two national championship teams with USC in 2003 and 2004, and led the Trojans to another title game in 2005, rushing for 1,740 yards, averaging 8.7 yards per carry and scoring 19 touchdowns.
He became the second overall pick in the draft NFL for the New Orleans Saints after a college career in which he recorded 3,169 yards in three seasons, averaging 7.3 yards per carry and scoring 42 times.
The NCAA later investigated USC and Reggie Bush and determined that he and his family had received impermissible benefits from a marketing agent while playing for the Trojans.
The NCAA severely penalized USC in 2010 and then the Heisman Trust vacated the USC win. Bush for the Heisman and asked him to return his trophy.
Among the NCAA sanctions, USC disassociated itself from Bush for 10 years. That ban was lifted in 2020 and the school welcomed the player back.
The Heisman remains vacant and would only be returned if the NCAA reconsiders the sanctions against Bush. The NCAA has said it will not reevaluate cases of prior violations, although there have been calls to do so in light of today’s less restrictive rules on athlete compensation for sponsorship deals.
Yes ok Reggie Bush not yet a Heisman winner on official records, he will be a Hall of Famer.
The National Football Foundation, which runs College Hall, has been more lenient in recent years toward players and coaches linked to NCAA scandals.
Former Ohio State coach Jim Tressel was elected in 2015. The school he coached to a national championship forced him to resign in 2011 for misleading NCAA investigators.
SMU running back Eric Dickerson waited decades before entering the Hall of Fame in 2021. Dickerson was never found to have violated NCAA rules, but his association with a program that closed in the mid-1980s for violations that spanned his time at the school was enough to keep him out.
The rest of the latest generation of college Hall of Famers include: Tennessee’s Eric Berry; Robert Gallery of Iowa; Derrick Johnson of Texas; Bill Kollar from Montana State; Jeremy Maclin of Missouri; Terance Mathis of New Mexico; Miami’s Bryant McKinnie; Virginia Tech’s Corey Moore; Michael Stonebreaker of Notre Dame; Troy Vincent from Wisconsin; Villanova’s Brian Westbrook; and DeAngelo Williams of Memphis.
The four coaches to be inducted into the Hall of Fame in December will be Shepherd’s Monte Cater; Roy Kramer, the Central Michigan coach who became commissioner of the Southeastern Conference; Mark Richt, who coached Georgia and Miami; and triple-option guru Paul Johnson, who has worked at Georgia Southern, Navy and Georgia Tech.