Posts Tagged ‘Cam Newton’

"Know who invented the tunnel screen? Guy named Ponzi." (AJC photo by Curtis Compton)

The Monday Heat Check begins with a cold case that got hot 20 months later. I believe you get the drift.

Georgia Tech: Its defenders insist the punishment doesn’t match the (admittedly small) violation and that the NCAA chose to make an example of Tech. In both cases the defenders are correct, and in both cases they miss the point. The Jackets failed to do what an NCAA member institution is expected to do. There are a lot of silly ways to wind up on four years’ probation, but this might be the silliest. Heat Index: When you have to give back the only outright ACC football championship your program has won in two decades, you might as well change your nickname to the Polar Bears.

Georgia Tech’s legal advisers: Not exactly the Dream Team, eh? Surely there’s someone in Atlanta capable of doing as Ed (The Terminator) Tolley keeps doing for the Georgia Bulldogs, which is to take a ticklish …

Continue reading Heat Check: Tech makes NCAA see red; Donnan’s in the red »

"Hey, wait just a minute! I have a bunch more questions to ask the speaker!" (AP photo)

Perhaps you’re wondering about the state of the NCAA’s investigation into Cam Newton’s short time at Auburn. Apparently the Auburn coach is, or at least was. According to Pete Thamel of the New York Times, Gene Chizik has been given cause to wonder no longer.

Writes Thamel:

Julie Roe Lach, the NCAA’s vice president for enforcement, made a presentation to the group [of SEC coaches at their convocation at Destin, Fla.], which included every men’s basketball coach, football coach and athletic director in the conference. When she opened up the room for discussion, Auburn’s football coach, Gene Chizik, raised his hand first.

He peppered Roe Lach with a flurry of questions about the NCAA’s investigation into Cam Newton and why the NCAA had not publicly announced that the investigation was over. Chizik complained that the inquiry’s open-ended nature had hurt Auburn’s recruiting …

Continue reading NCAA to Auburn’s Chizik: ‘It ain’t over until we say it’s over’ »

Cliff Harris after intercepting a Cam Newton pass. He has since been suspended. (AP photo)

It has been a bad summer for championship-caliber football programs. Southern Cal, the 2004 BCS winner, has been stripped of its title. Ohio State, the 2002 BCS winner, has seen its coach resign under duress. And one of the schools that played for the 2010 BCS title has been rocked with allegations that indicate its presence in Glendale, Ariz., might not have been the feel-good story of the winter.

And no, that school is not Auburn.

The Oregon Ducks lost the BCS title to Auburn on a field goal. In the run-up to the game, the scrutiny fell on Cam Newton, the Auburn quarterback from Atlanta. In the months since, no evidence has come to light to indicate that Auburn broke any rules in its recruitment of Newton. (Yes, Mississippi State sources have said Cecil Newton wanted money for his son to play – for Mississippi State.)

As for Oregon … whoa, Nellie.

Eyebrows were raised when Duck …

Continue reading Guess which team that played for the BCS title is in trouble »

Russell Wilson: He'll be wearing red as a Badger, too. (AP photo)

Well, here’s one one-year quarterback Auburn didn’t get. Russell Wilson, formerly of North Carolina State, committed Monday to Wisconsin, which was big news, since the last Immediate Impact Free Agent in college football landed at Auburn, where he stayed a few months and left with a BCS title and a Heisman Trophy.

This isn’t to say Russell Wilson will make the same splash as Cam Newton. (I say again: Cam Newton was the second-best collegiate player I’ve ever seen, trailing only Herschel Walker.) But Russell Wilson has already done far more as a collegian than Newton had upon his Auburn arrival, and he could have been the difference between the post-Cam Tigers falling from 14-0 to, say, 7-5.

But Wilson, who visited Auburn, opted to go elsewhere,  and there’s now a chance the Badgers will enter the season as Big Ten favorites. Michigan has a new coach, and so does Ohio State, and Nebraska is still in relocation …

Continue reading Former N.C. State QB Wilson picks Wisconsin over Auburn »

"Unhand that crystal, Mr. Carroll!" (AP photo)

File this under Empty Gestures: Six and a half years after the fact, the BCS has determined that Southern Cal was not its national champion. (Thank Reggie Bush and his benefactors.) Indeed, the BCS has decreed that, from this day forward, it will have no national champion for 2004.

Which will make Auburn folks mad, seeing as how the Tigers finished undefeated but was shut out of the BCS championship game because …  well, because then as now we don’t have a bona fide playoff. But it really wouldn’t have been fair to name Auburn the national champ over Oklahoma, which was likewise undefeated until it lost to Southern Cal 55-19 in the BCS title game.

Can we debit the Sooners for a loss that now, at least in BCS eyes, didn’t happen? And do we know for sure that Auburn, with Cadillac Williams and Ronnie Brown and Jason Campbell, would have beaten Oklahoma, which had Adrian Peterson and Jason White and the fabulously named Mark …

Continue reading Southern Cal isn’t the 2004 BCS champ, but neither is Auburn »

Gene Chizik at Talladega: Is the NCAA OK with this? (Photo courtesy of the Birmingham News)

SEC commissioner Mike Slive told a meeting of sports editors Monday he has received no word from the NCAA that it has closed its investigation of Cam Newton. This news — or non-news, depending on your slant — comes only days after Jon Solomon of the Birmingham News reported that Auburn admits the NCAA is investigating the (since-discontinued) Tiger Prowl.

A bit of background: The Tiger Prowl was initiated when Gene Chizik arrived in 2009 and involved Auburn coaches touring Alabama — and showing up at some of its high schools — in white stretch limousines. The NCAA has since passed legislation limiting the number of coaches who could visit a high school on the same day.

Another bit of background: The Tiger Prowl isn’t to be confused with Big Cat Weekend, an event staged at Toomer’s Corner involving fans and recruits that, in its 2009 manifestation, wound up being the source of five …

Continue reading A guess: All the NCAA sniffing won’t cost Auburn its BCS title »

Can anyone "authenticate" that this is actually Cam Newton? (AJC photo by Brant Sanderlin)

Yesterday we noted that Scott Moore, an Alabama entertainer, has been saying he has heard audio tapes of Cecil Newton talking about money in exchange for his famous son’s amateur services. We also noted that Moore has indicated the tapes could prove Cecil Newton’s famous son Cam had been privy to such discussions.

Today, via Sports Radio 97.7 The Zone in Huntsville, we learn that Moore isn’t sure of … well, of much of anything. From SportsByBrooks’ transcription of Moore’s appearance on Cole Cubelic’s morning show:

I’ve heard a voice on that tape that said there’s an offer for $180,000 from Auburn and this is Cecil Newton … This is what I’ve been told was Cecil Newton. I’ve never heard Cecil talk before … but I was told by those guys [Mississippi State boosters John Bond and Bill Bell] that this was Cecil talking and Kenny Rogers [another Mississippi State figure] is on these tapes as …

Continue reading Oh, about that ‘Cam Newton tape’: Not so fast, my friends »

Cam Newton throws for the assembled NFL folks, and not particularly well. (AP photo)

Over the weekend Cam Newton went to Indianapolis and did himself no favors. Cam Newton arrived at the NFL combine  having already offered a quote that made him sound less like the anchor a franchise seeks and more like … Justin Bieber?

To Peter King of SI.com: “I see myself not just as a football player but as an entertainer and an icon.”

Also this, to Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports: “I don’t want to sound arrogant, but I did something in one year people couldn’t do in their whole collegiate careers.”

Which, you’d have to say, sounded a tad arrogant. Then Newton ran for the assembled scouts and team execs and, you’ll be shocked to learn, ran pretty fast. Then he threw, which went less well. (He completed 11 of 21 passes, which is OK if you’re working against a real defense, which Newton wasn’t.) He also sought to deflect media inquiries about his wayfaring career, saying: “I’m not going to …

Continue reading Iconic Cam goes to the combine, but what’s this about a tape? »

Just because Auburn chose to play Cam Newton against Georgia doesn’t mean Auburn or Newton is safe. The NCAA doesn’t work that way. The NCAA gears, such as they are, grind slowly. The NCAA has only begun to sniff around.

Phillip Marshall of Auburn Undercover reported Saturday that the Newtons and Auburn administrators met with NCAA representatives last Thursday. (Link requires registration.) That the school chose to play Newton has been taken by some as an indication that the NCAA has nothing on Auburn. That’s not necessarily true. The NCAA might have nothing on Auburn yet. But by now its investigators have, or should have, a growing indication that this player was put up for sale at least once.

ESPN.com reported yesterday that another Mississippi State former player, the Florida businessman Bob Bell, essentially confirmed the story Kenny Rogers told on ESPN 103.3 Dallas last week and even added a detail: There was a payment schedule for Newton – $80,000 on his commitment to …

Continue reading Cam Newton and Auburn in the clear? Not so fast, my friend »