Cam Newton's last season in NCAA

I hate Auburn as Georgia fan, but .

I hope it's not true too.  This would not only be bad Auburn, it would be bad for CFB as a whole.  It would pretty much cast a cloud over the sport and the entire season.  I'm not rooting for this, I hope it all goes away.

But like I said above, when was the last time you saw an investigation reach the major media outlets and disappear with no punishment???  I can't remember one in 25 years of following the sport.

We Ya'll talk da same so we stik together  In the land of cotton ho away ho away, ho awy dixie land....

Feelin stupid today for some reason.

I blame this crap on the media and mostly ESPN for blasting this stuff all over, every little story has to make headlines. Way too much, and ESPN is the Horse always pulling the carriage. Things like this have been happening for ever. But one guy who thinks he can make some money discloses it for a few bucks and it is all over the place. ESPN is the one that could not put it on TV, radio, etc. and let it rest until it is proven to be true. But the upper guys see a chance to get more ratings and they blast it everytime.

As much money as they make off of sports they also help give it a bad name by following up on every little story. T-shirt sales, A bad agent, kid gets a dui, and on and on. I am sick of reading and hearing about it Already. No body is perfect and getting caught up in something like this should not be that big of a deal. And should / could be left alone for the school and Ncaa to take care of. Leave it semi private. But all the dam do-gooders have to make sure people try to be perfect, like them. Dame near everyone on this site is doing something bad.

Fuking shame they got to make a big deal of it for a few bucks.

How can anybody be shocked by this stuff when it happens on a yearly basis it seems ? I could care less about the story as well

I could care less too.  I think it's BS.   But it will have earth shaking consequences if any part if it is true.

The real story is that Cam cut up some prostitutes in a Motel 6, and got caught because Tom Bodett left the damn light on!!!

 This is a great thread...the factis CamNewton is still playing saturday bottom line. He will win the heisman this season and will probably be going to the NFL afterwards eitherway. This just gives the rest of the SEC West a couple days to feel good about the possibility of having a chance to be in Atlanta in Dec. Reality is Auburn wins out and contines to gash every defense they face.

I missed that part of it! 

It's not about Cecil's personal finances, it's about the finances of the churches he controls, and possibly a construction company he owns (that is really a shell).

It may also be about a booster in Alabaster.  All I can say is if someone took 200k out of Alabaster, Alabama, there's nothing left!!!

 

 

At least no one will accuse you of being a homer or a flag waver! 

As I said previously in this thread.  Cam can play in all the games and Auburn can win 'em all by 50+ points.  He can also win the Heisman...as he deserves.   But..if any of this is true, he and Auburn will be stripped of EVERYTHING and they will face MAJOR sanctions.  That is the story.

Agreed.  I hear different numbers coming out of espn's ass depending what show i hear

where can i get a copy of fat beach patrol 3?
it looks  very intresting
i love ur avatar its very unique

It will take some time to track down the various financial transactions that the NCAA are interested in.  I don't really see anything happening on this in the near future.

Nevertheless, the allegation says that money came from a booster in Alabaster, was funneled through a charity, and the charity gave the money to Cecil Newton's church, who in turned used the money to save his chuch from imminenet demolition.  I already posted the link about the Newnan City Council's efforts to demolish Cecil's church, but I'll post it again.

https://www.times-herald.com/printerFriendly/Fate-of-Temple-Avenue-church-before-Newnan-City-Council-Tuesday-1138861

 

Here are a few stories that have come out recently. Take them for what they are worth too you...

Well, that was an interesting evening, wasn't it?

There I was, wrapping up dinner at a sports bar before a Thrashers game, when Cam Newton's face popped up on every screen in the place. Approximately three seconds later, my iPhone exploded, hurling shrapnel halfway to Decatur.

Okay, I made the last part up. But I did get an awful lot of calls.

Unless you're coming out of a coma this morning (watch out for the zombies), you know by now that ESPN and the New York Times went public last night with allegations that an "street agent" runner had solicited Mississippi State for $200,000 (minus a $20,000 "hometown discount") as the purported terms for Cam Newton's signature on a national letter of intent. The story was floated by former MSU quarterback John Bond; the runner is an old teammate of Bond's, a character named Kenny Rogers, who despite his handle, apparently doesn't have much of a grasp of when to hold and/or fold them.

That's really it. ESPN's Pat Forde, Chris Lowe and Mark Schablach, along with the Times' Pete Thamel, don't make any overt accusations against either Auburn or the Newtons, although both sling around innuendo suggesting that Cecil Newton, a minister and bishop, came into some extra cash he needed to repair an Atlanta-area church he's responsible for. The senior Newton firmly denied all the allegations when contacted, and says he willingly turned over his personal and church financial records to the NCAA when asked earlier this year. A local news report published in September 2009, months before Auburn ever contacted or began recruiting Newton, indicates the money for the church renovation was already "in-hand" at that time.

By halftime of last night's Virginia Tech-Georgia Tech game, ESPN was already backtracking on the innuendo; Forde himself eventually admitted that he knew of no evidence implicating Auburn in wrongdoing. For Auburn's part, the athletic department and Gene Chizik both released brief statements declaring that Newton has been and remains eligible to play at AU.

Those statements, while short, are significant. Auburn's current compliance department isn't known for either leniency or looking the other way-just ask new basketball coach Tony Barbee, who nearly walked away from his job entirely last month because of the onerous terms that department had added to his contract.

Multiple reports since the story broke indicate that Auburn has been fully aware of the Kenny Rogers allegations since early last summer, and I feel very safe in saying that if there were any chance of Auburn being implicated in any rule-breaking in this case, Cam Newton would never have put on a Tiger uniform this year. The guys in that office just would not take that kind of a chance-and not because they have any particular love for Auburn University. Sheer careerism on their parts would move them to declare Newton ineligible at the first sign of any potential violations.

Institutionally, Auburn obviously wants to win football games, but the idea that the entire AU administrative apparatus would play Newton with foreknowledge of serious violations-remember, this stuff was known to AU, the SEC and NCAA as far back as July-doesn't stand up to the smell test. You couldn't get that many people to burn their careers over one guy, not matter how many yards he might gain one day. According to the Birmingham News' Charles Goldberg, Auburn thoroughly investigated the allegations months ago, and found no evidence of contact between Rogers and anyone associated with AU.


When asked by the media about the allegations, SEC representative Greg Sankey characterized them as "rumor and innuendo." This sort of accusation pops up all the time in the wake of heated recruiting battles, and the conference and NCAA have to follow up as a matter of course. Unless an actual violation is uncovered, the public never hears about the back-and-forth charges. That is, unless somebody goes public.

In this case, the "somebodies" who went public are apparently Bond and embattled Florida coach Urban Meyer. According to reporting from Rivals.com's Jeffrey Lee, the Newton allegations bubbled up to the surface thanks to a recent phone conversation between Bond, Meyer and Mississippi State coach (and former Meyer assistant) Dan Mullen. Per Lee's account, Meyer was insistent that the charges should go public, while Mullen disagreed.

A couple of points here. Urban Meyer is suffering through the worst season of his career as a major-school head coach. He's been taking fire all year for his moribund offense, and for letting Cam Newton leave Florida after his redshirt sophomore year. Meyer is known to be good friends with Pete Thamel; it's not at all hard to imagine the coach calling up his buddy in the press to try and deflect attention away from his own failings. Thamel, who'd already seen one breathlessly-reported Auburn "scandal" story dissolve into nothing more than a pissing match between two geriatric professors, probably jumped at the chance to take another swing at AU.

If so, he and his ESPN colleagues (John Bond, the sole source for both stories, worked with Mark Schablach in television a while back) picked a pretty fishy witness to hang their hats on. Bond's accusations rest on his alleged conversations with Kenny Rogers, a scab player for the Miami Dolphins during the 1987 strike, who has quite the checkered past. He's currently under investigation by the NFL and NFLPA for misrepresenting himself to potential draftees. Rogers' company is apparently bankrupt, with more than $11,000 in overdrawn checks. Cecil Newton says he didn't even meet Rogers until Cam's visit to Starkville last November, and flatly states that if Rogers solicited money from anyone, he did so on his own without the knowledge of the Newtons.

After canvassing people in a position to know, I think I'm safe in saying that nobody in an official position at Auburn is worried about violations or sanctions coming out of this story-although they are certifiably furious over the media uproar. The Bond allegations are not a surprise, and were settled as far as AU is concerned to the satisfaction of the SEC and NCAA months ago; if not for the apparent intercession of Urban Meyer and John Bond, they would have lived and died in the endless, Byzantine netherworld of underground SEC chatter. Now that they're public, though, people are going to suffer from them. Auburn is going to suffer through a round of catcalls from rivals and the press. Newton's Heisman campaign may well suffer from the innuendo, through no fault of his own. But I suspect the suffering won't end there.

Kenny Rogers is apparently broke, and thus judgment-proof. Urban Meyer and John Bond, on the other hand, are not.

Phillip's blog: The Urban Meyer connection
Phillip Marshall, Senior Editor Huntsville Times
50 minutes ago
Comments:19Add a comment14
ShareIt is becoming increasingly clear that Florida coach Urban Meyer is a central player in the controversy that surrounds Auburn quarterback Cam Newton.


Phillip Marshall, Senior Editor, AuburnUndercover.comJohn Bond, who was quoted by ESPN.com saying that he was approached by former teammate Kenny Rogers about getting money in exchange for delivering Newton to Mississippi State last December, has told people close to him a startling story.

Here is gist of it as told by Bond:

Bond was on a three-way telephone call with Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen and Meyer to discuss the situation. Both Mullen and Bond said that they believed the matter was closed. They had done what they were supposed to do, passed it on to the league office, and nothing else needed to be said.

But Meyer strongly disagreed, saying it needed to be public and that he was going to call The New York Times. Meyer and Pete Thamel, the reporter who wrote the story for The New York Times, are close friends.

A source close to Bond told AuburnUndercover.com that Bond talked to ESPN.com reporters only after it became obvious the story was going to break and that he is distressed about the reaction, particularly the attacks on Newton’s character.

Meyer, Bond has said privately, “is behind the whole thing.”

Newton spent two seasons at Florida, playing for Meyer and for Mullen, who was then Florida’s offensive coordinator.

As Newton has become a superstar and the leading candidate for the Heisman Trophy, Meyer has faced questions about letting him get away. Within hours of the ESPN story breaking Thursday, columnists in Florida were writing that it was a good thing Newton left.

Meyer is expected to deny any involvement, perhaps as early as this afternoon.

“If he does, he’s telling an outright lie,” the source said.

So there you have it.

Meyer’s involvement doesn’t shed any light on what did or didn’t happen, but it certainly is a strange twist to a strange story.

What’s most telling about where Newton and Auburn stand is the fact that, not only is Newton eligible, but head coach Gene Chizik and athletics director Jay Jacobs are forcefully saying he’s eligible.

Here’s something people need to know:

Rich McGlynn, Auburn’s senior associate athletics director for compliance, is a tough guy. He doesn’t play around. He came to Auburn after spending five seasons working at the NCAA. If a player’s eligibility is in question in any way, McGlynn will not let him play.

Until the SEC or NCAA says something to clear things up, the astonishing attacks on Newton’s character, made without any evidence at all, will certainly continue.

And, according to what Bond has said, it all started with Newton’s former coach.

What a sad story.

The first article is by

Will Collier
AuburnSports.com Columnist

i just read his avatar

Well how do you prove this? Unlike with Reggie there was a paper trail. The way I see it, is that they won't be abl to prove it, but what will ad should happen, is that common sense says if he was asking for 200 large from Miss St., then why did he choose Auburn? So with that question you have to probe and see if there is any paper trail on Auburn giving him anything. Other than that this is just stupid STORY IMO. If he asked for money, why didn't Miss St. blow the whistle on him as soon as he signed with Auburn?

Droxside, you're a great writer.

Good stuff Drox. 

The New York Times involvement worries me the most.  They don't run with stories unless there is something to them.

ESPN/Disney is a strange media outlet and source.  They always spin stories...their inability to badmouth Tiger Woods...Lebron James...etc.  The network will not let it's employees appear or speak to other sports media networks or publications, because they may get asked something controversial.  They are so concerned with being friends with players and coaches...using them in commercials, etc.  Disney tries to spin information in all of their dealings. 

The bottom line is that this case is in the hands of the NCAA...not ESPN or the NYT.  The NCAA does not comment on investigations.  (They will not even comment if there is a formal investigation ongoing.)  They kinda play by their own rules...as screwed up as they may be.

I hope this goes away.  Auburn may as well keep playing Newton.  If any of this is true, they will get slammed either way.

I see a lot of writers saying they aren't going to vote for him for Heisman.  I think that's wrong.  Until there is proof, he deserves a vote.  He can be stripped later if this is true..a la Reggie Bush.

It's going to be tough watching these games, knowing that they could be forfeits later.  True or not, it has cast a shadow on the end of the season.