Almost from the moment I started writing about the N.C.A.A. last year, I received periodic e-mails from fans of the University of Southern California football team still incensed about an N.C.A.A. ruling that had been issued against the school in 2010. They claimed that the case offered an unusually stark look at how the N.C.A.A. twists facts, tramples over due process and unfairly destroys reputations when it sets out to nail a school, a player or a coach.

I didn’t pursue it back then, partly because the story seemed stale; the alleged transgression had mainly taken place in 2005. Besides, the rules themselves are little more than a restraint of trade, meant to ensure that the athletes remain uncompensated despite the billions of dollars everyone else reaps from the sweat of their brows.

In the U.S.C. case, the N.C.A.A. made a series of allegations about Reggie Bush, the 2005 Heisman Trophy winner, the most memorable of which was that his parents had lived rent-free in a house owned — heaven forbid! — by one of two would-be agents. The N.C.A.A. views any transaction between a college athlete and an agent as a violation of its amateurism rules.

Ah, but what to do about it? Bush, safely ensconced in the N.F.L., was out of reach of the N.C.A.A. There wasn’t even all that much it could do to U.S.C. — unless, that is, its investigators could prove that a member of the U.S.C. athletic staff had known about the sub rosa relationship. Then it could throw the book at U.S.C. Which is exactly what happened.