How do you vacate a championship

How exactly do you vacate a championship that was won by USC in football in 2004?

In 2004, even though USC beat Oklahoma 55-19 in the National Championship game, there was no National Champion because it was later determined that Reggie Bush, who played for USC was ineligible, therefore USC had to forfeit all games he played in.

I agree that it's ok to not allow a school to say they were National Champions from now on. That's ok, but what about the players and coaches? The ones who prepped for the game? I have to say they as individuals were National Champions. I can't take away the work they put in.

I don't like that there were no National Champions in 2004, yet at the same time I don't think it's fair to crown a new champion after the fact. I don't think anyone wants to be called a National Champion if they didn't actually play and win a National Championship game.

Where does this leave us? Not really sure to be honest. I guess the only way to fully solve the problem is to monitor athletes before they actually play the game. All investigations are final before the game and if something is found out later a school should be heavily fined and have scholarships taken away, along with allowing all student athletes to transfer and have an extra year of eligibility for all upperclassmen. Student athletes shouldn't have to be adversely affected by what others at a school did a long time ago. If a student athlete has to transfer in this situation why not give them a fifth year? This way that athlete, if they are an upperclassmen, will have more time to assimilate with a new team. It's unfair to expect a senior to get a fair shot if they transfer to another school for one last season. They might have trouble fitting in and it could take sometime before coaches realize how to utilize that person's talent.

I hate that current student athletes are penalized by past coaches, players and administrations when schools are punished today for things that happened awhile ago.

Along with this, Student Athletes must be held more accountable for their actions and knowledge of NCAA Rules. Student-athletes should be learning how to be responsible in college and part of that is understanding what rules govern them. If coaches are required to take a compliance test why aren't student athletes tested on the rules to be eligible? Student-Athletes have compliance meetings and are given handbooks and exposed to fliers with rules, yet the vast majority never read the handbooks.