USC should re-retire Reggie Bush’s No. 5 jersey and the NCAA should return his Heisman…

While the former Trojans star fights to win back his 2005 Heisman trophy, his jersey number deserves the honor of being officially removed from circulation.

Mirjam Johnson (Southern Calif News Group)  —  Make it make sense.

On Saturday night in New York, Caleb Williams became either the eighth USC football player to win the Heisman Trophy, or the seventh. That either set a college football record or tied it.

It depended: Were you watching Chris Fowler on ESPN’s broadcast (he counted eight) or reading the Heisman Trust’s news release (seven)? Seeing it on Yahoo Sports (seven) or reading The Guardian (eight)? Getting your news from CNN (seven) or any of the Southern California News Group’s papers (eight)?

Confusing, no? And perturbing when you consider that in 2015, college sports’ governing body put Joe Paterno back atop the pile of the sport’s winningest coaches with 409 victories — 111 of which were restored after having been erased in the aftermath of the ghastly Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal at Penn State.

So the NCAA has the ability to replay a down.

But the kid who was stripped of his Heisman Trophy over dealings with marketing agents — dealings that Reggie Bush denies, by the way, and which would amount to a pittance compared with what’s permitted today — he’s still on the outside looking in.

Williams arrived in New York not just as the best player in college football this season, but a businessman — as a business, man.

The 20-year-old sophomore quarterback’s name, image, likeness reportedly is valued in the neighborhood of $2.5 million. He’s got partnerships with Fanatics and Leaf Trading Cards, with Hawkins Way Capital and Athletic Brewing Company, and he warmed up for the Heisman ceremony by announcing a new partnership with Celsius, a fitness drink company.

And then he picked up the coveted trophy in a boldly branded adidas x Gucci suit.

But we don’t have to squint too hard to see a connection between Bush’s ordeal and the current landscape that allows athletes like Williams to earn compensation commensurate to their celebrity value.

The NCAA punished Bush — and USC, for a “lack of institutional control” — because it found that his parents had been living rent-free in a home provided by a prospective agent and because he and his family were found to have accepted other improper financial benefits of more than $100,000.

Also, there apparently was a limousine ride to the 2005 Heisman ceremony — the horror!

The sanctions for those transgressions were steep: USC had to vacate 14 wins, including the BCS championship victory over Oklahoma, and the Trojans lost 30 scholarships over three years and got a two-year bowl ban, plus four years’ probation.

Beyond that, USC was to permanently disassociate itself from Bush. And so USC returned its copy of Bush’s Heisman Trophy and removed all of his jerseys and murals, on campus and at the Coliseum.

And here we are. Even though the NCAA thawed on permanently, allowing USC to announce in 2020 that Bush was welcome back, his once-retired No. 5 jersey still isn’t among those displayed at the Coliseum when the Trojans play.

O.J. Simpson’s is, though.

Make that make sense.

And factor in this: Bush has some allegations of his own about how the NCAA handled his case, calling the investigation “sloppy” and anything but thorough.

In a recent conversation with fellow former NFLers Brandon Marshall, Adam “Pacman” Jones and LeSean McCoy on their “I Am Athlete” podcast, Bush said investigators never even talked with his parents.

He said they would have explained that they moved into the San Diego-area house because a friend offered it, not as a perk, but to help in the short term, as a “last-minute resort,” after the townhome they’d been renting was being foreclosed upon and they, as tenants, were forced to move out.

Would that generosity have been available had Bush not been a sublimely talented football player? Maybe, maybe not. But Bush insists he broke no rules.

“Just half of the stuff they said I was doing, I wish I actually did,” Bush said, adding, “I wasn’t trying to monetize my name, image and likeness, that’s the craziest thing.”

If he’d been allowed to, Bush would’ve been a conglomerate in and unto himself.

Perhaps the greatest college football player ever, Bush was a scintillating talent at USC from 2003-05, a must-see star on teams that won national championships his first two seasons before the Trojans lost to Texas in the title game in 2005. He finished his career with 3,169 rushing yards, 1,301 receiving yards and 42 total touchdowns.

But it seems he had bad timing.

A decade later, Bush, 37, is lobbying the NCAA and Heisman Trust to restore his records and recognition, his good name.

His school could help. His university could do something equally as symbolic as removing No. 5 from its collection of retired jerseys.

USC could re-retire it.

The Sporting Tribune reported that USC athletic director Mike Bohn says that’s a possibility: “We are 100% in support of Reggie and that was demonstrated when President (Carol) Folt reinstated him the second it was permissible with his NCAA issue,” Bohn said.

Still, nothing is imminent.

They should make it happen; it would only make sense.

ocregister.com

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