DId the NCAA preemptively make appeals more difficult, just to attack USC?

Dan Weber at USCfootball.com has written an in-depth piece on the push by USC alumni to bring the NCAA's lack of  truthfulness and transparency to Congress.  In a "Clemens moment", one of the NCAA COI's members might be facing an issue of perjury before Congress, on the question of just how much due process there is in the NCAA's system.  One possible query, is whether the NCAA unilaterally (without a vote by its membership) passed new rules that made it much more difficult to appeal infraction findings, just so that it could tackle USC's situation with flimsy evidence.

Extremely disturbing however, is a recent article that this same person from the COI, suggests that former student athletes who refuse to cooperate, should be considered guilty by silence.  Now that's an enormous bombshell, because in the US Constitution, the 5th Amendment allows you the specific right to remain silent in criminal cases, such that you're not incriminating yourself.  This is an important balance to the criminal justice system, underpinning such rules as Miranda Rights.  And it could be included as a point of contention, that the NCAA does not, in fact, support due process in its system of COI, as demonstrated in its treatment of USC and  Todd McNair.

How slanted has the NCAA become?  The NCAA President told a crowd last month, that he thought the NCAA's COI "got it right" on the USC case; this is just before USC goes before the appeals panel to present its case on January 22.  Do you think this was a preemptive attack on USC's appeal?  I think so; after all, he could have simply said that it was improper for him to speak to the case when it is was in the middle of an appeal.  So much for due process?

And as everyone can see, the NCAA hypocritically told USC that it should have known, but it has told others (Auburn and Ohio State) that it was okay if they didn't know.  This sort of hypocrisy is noted, by Ohio State's nearly 400 secondary violations over the last decade, and a lack of interest by the NCAA's COI to consider this repeated ignorance as a sign of insufficient education of its athletes, and inadequate proactive programs to prevent violations.  Everyone knows USC got screwed by a bunch of hypocrites.

If the NCAA fails to overturn the COI's ruling on USC, all hell will break loose, and deservedly so.