Ex-USC Coach Steve Sarkisian Calls Out Reggie Bush, Says He’s ‘an Idiot’

Pete Carroll was willing to look a little ridiculous in order to defend his former player, calling Reggie Bush‘s return of his 2005 Heisman Trophy nothing but a “teaching moment.” Fellow former USC coach hiding out in Washington Steve Sarkisian wasn’t.

When asked about Bush’s handling of his Heisman scandal, the University of Washington head coach didn’t mince words.

“He had a chance to apologize, look like the good guy … But in giving it back and not apologizing, he just looks like an idiot again,” Sarkisian said.

This came in response to Bush’s statements about his decision.

“It’s definitely not an admission of guilt,” Bush explained. “It’s me showing my respect to the Heisman Trophy and to the people who come before me and the people who come after me. You’re going to keep hearing the same thing because that’s what it is. It’s not an admission of guilt. It’s me feeling like this is the best thing for me and the Heisman Trust right now.”

Bush isn’t willing to admit to any wrongdoing, but has Sarkisian or any member of the 2005 coaching staff been?

Nobody wants to own up for anything USC did.

Sarkisian’s words, though, came in the wake of USC athletic director Pat Hayden‘s own rip of Bush.

“Never did [Bush] say I’m sorry or I apologize,” Haden told the Los Angeles Times. “Never did he say, ‘I lied to the NCAA or I took stuff.’ … He told me, ‘If I could turn the clock back, I would. If I could give the Heisman Trophy back, I would’… I would say it was conversation of him being contrite, but not an apology.”

Understandably, nobody wants anything to do with the reality that everybody in the program was likely involved with, or at least aware of, the violations. Their best bet for making the situation better, though, probably would be to admit wrongdoing or say nothing at all instead of deflecting blame in different ways.

The denials and the hostility just look foolish.

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