From the beginning, an inordinate amount of the attention paid to the Reggie Bush illegal benefits scandal has centered on the hardware, specifically Southern Cal’s BCS championship in 2004 (the allegations don’t extend to the Trojans’ 2003 AP championship season) and, maybe more evocatively, Bush’s Heisman in 2005, the season most directly tainted by the apparent evidence. The most prominent of the several books chronicling (and clouding) the saga is tellingly titled, "Tainted Heisman." The idea of a group of stone-faced, black-clad doers of justice marching into Heritage Hall and lifting the prizes right out of the trophy cases seems to be the satisfaction that Trojan haters demand, and that a lot of outside observers presume.

As outgoing Pac-10 commissioner Tom Hansen reminded L.A. Times readers earlier this week, though, even if the NCAA does eventually decide to drop the hammer on Bush or USC at large, the Association would have a very hard time revoking honors it doesn’t control:

Q. Hypothetically, how would you strip a national title from a football team? Unlike basketball, the NCAA doesn’t run [a national championship in] football.

A: It’s trickier because you don’t have the NCAA mechanisms. … It’s not completely clear exactly how the process could be pursued.

On one hand, I think it’s news here that Hansen takes the question at face value, acknowledging that yes, the dominant football program in his conference might deserve to be stripped of a title, instead of playing the politician by waving off the insinuation as premature, hypothetical or inappropriate, or just saying it’s out of his hands. But he’s right that a punitive strike at a national championship (or a Heisman Trophy) would be uncharted waters — no champion has ever been stripped of the honor, and the murkiness of contemplating such a move only points to the inherently mythical, decentralized and somewhat chaotic nature of the thing.

Who has the right to revoke a BCS championship, anyway? Presumably, the leadership of the Downtown Athletic Club of New York could take back its Heisman, though it’s never attempted to do so with any of its other winners and probably has no procedure for redaction. But who’s responsible for the crystal ball? The cabal of conference presidents that oversee the BCS? Nominally, their charge is only to ratify the system that selects teams to play in the title game, not to award a champion. That task falls to the coaches in the USA Today poll, whose rigged "vote" officially awards the trophy. Would the question be up to those coaches? Who’s going to ask them?

If the NCAA chooses — and that remains a very large, lingering if at this point in the USC investigation — it can declare every win a loss in those championship seasons, maybe dock a scholarship or two and type up papers that say "probation," whatever that means these days. But once the big prizes are out of the bag, barring a miracle of consensus and coordination, it seems they’re out for good. Short of crippling a cash cow with stricter scholarship cuts than it’s doled out in years or reviving the long lost bowl/championship ban going forward, the Association’s options are only speed bumps.