Report: Reggie Bush to lose Heisman

ESPN.com news services

The Heisman Trophy Trust is expected to strip former USC running back Reggie Bush of his 2005 Heisman Trophy and leave the award vacant, Yahoo Sports reported.

Two sources close to the trust said the organization is completing its investigation and will agree with the NCAA's finding that Bush accepted improper benefits while at USC and was ineligible during the 2005 season, according to the report. The NCAA cited USC for "lack of institutional control" and handed the Trojans four years' probation, a two-year bowl ban and a reduction in football scholarships.

The Heisman Trophy Trust will reportedly strip Reggie Bush of the Heisman Trophy he won in a landslide in 2005.

However, ESPN's Chris Fowler said the report was "completely false" and "premature."

Fowler told "SportsCenter" that although members of the eight-person trust have had informal conversations among themselves about what to do about Bush's Heisman, "they certainly have not made any decision" about rescinding it.

"They haven't made a decision. No announcement is imminent," Fowler said Tuesday. "They have not had any formal meetings about this."

The trust does have a regularly-scheduled meeting in September, Fowler said.

Bush would become the first player in the 75-year history of the Heisman Trophy to have the award taken away.

In July, USC president C.L. Max Nikias ordered the school's athletic department to return its copy of Bush's 2005 Heisman to the Heisman Trophy Trust. Nikias also ordered the school to remove nearly all references to Bush and former basketball player O.J. Mayo, including murals, as part of the NCAA's directive to disassociate the school from the athletes.

As that time, Bush had not been asked to return his copy and the Heisman Trophy Trust said it had not yet decided whether Bush would be stripped of the award.

Bush met with Heisman representatives last month at the New York law offices of Emmet, Marvin & Martin, the sources said, according to the report.

The sources declined to discuss the details of that meeting, according to the report.

Last week, Texas coach Mack Brown said former Longhorns quarterback Vince Young, who finished second in the 2005 Heisman voting to Bush, should be given the award if Bush is stripped. Young led the Longhorns past USC to the BCS national championship that year, after Bush was awarded the Heisman in a landslide.

The NCAA ruled that Bush received lavish gifts from two fledgling sports marketers hoping to sign him. The men paid for everything from hotel stays and a rent-free home where Bush's family apparently lived to a limousine and a new suit when he accepted his Heisman in New York in December 2005.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.