Dan Mullen on the NCAA’s investigation into Cam Newton’s recruitment:
“The truth of the situation is, the people that need to know the truth, know the truth.”
That’s some righteous shit there, dude. Truth.
Zen and the art of quarterback recruiting
Filed under The NCAA
Get The Picture 
He has made some very strange comments throughout this process. One was quoted on the Dan Patrick show about writing about it in his book. I can’t think of a way the NCAA can find out the truth without any power to compel testimony and subpoena records. To get to the bottom of this it would take a Grand Jury. There’s smoke but no one gets burned by smoke.
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The public needs to know the truth at 9-0 not at the beginning of the season.
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Is it just me, or does the national media (or local media for that matter) seem to be sweeping this under the rug?
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Yeah, this is a weird situation. My wife read an article (and I’m sure y’all have seen it) saying that Cecil Newton’s church came upon $50,000 to make repairs to his church to keep it from being condemned.
When asked about it, he said he wasn’t going to get into it. My thoughts there are he could have easily said, “God provides” or “We are very blessed to have been taken care of” or something like that.
If he’s cooking his church books with cash from somewhere having to do with his son’s recruitment, that’s bad.
My hope, though, is that no one is like that. The church in Atlanta doesn’t need any more bad press than it’s gotten lately.
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Often there are individuals or businesses that will donate large sums of money but wish to remain anonymous for one reason or another. Every now and then my church receives $500,000 to $1,000,000 single donations and they are about $5 million in the hole. A $50k donation is not always unheard of.
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“Every now and then my church receives $500,000 to $1,000,000 single donations and they are about $5 million in the hole.”
Really? You did not just post that.
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OH YES I DID!
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The ways of the righteous inevitably lead to remuneration. Particularly when the righteous can run a four-three forty.
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Yes, the church was growing fast and needed to take out loans for buying more land and to expand some buildings. It is a very large church. It’s not something I am proud of but it is what it is. Some of the loans were not very wise and the person responsible for them is no longer associated with the church. You would be surprised at the debt some of the larger churches accumulate. It is a long story but nobody knew how much debt we had until the new board came in and made it public. I am not lying or exagerating about the size of the donations. We have several members who own large, successful businesses.
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Even now at this point in my life… I am still surprised at waste.: “Nobody Knew” how much debt ….yadayada. I live in Athens and the foolishness that non-profits spend in the name of helping those without alarms me. More church programs with this trickle down attitude just wont get it done. Whoa…. sorry Sports Fans …..and I have swung my hammer on more than one occasion building a house for someone without.
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Ray:
Have you done a google street view of this church (115 Temple Avenue, Newnan)? It’s an ugly transitional residential/commercial area of Newnan and the church “paid” 415K for it over 7 years ago and has yet to make any repairs?
WTF? Who is servicing the note? Why would a bank (even one governed by CRA) loan this amount of cheese for the acquisition of an old car dealership that sits vacant?
For whom is Cecil Newton a Bishop? Where does he conduct church service on Sundays? It aint the Temple Ave. bldg in Newnan as the city declared the structure unsafe TWO YEARS ago.
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I’ll take a look at it. There is a company in Ca that issues loans only to churches. I don’t know if Cecil got a loan from that company or what “qualifications” they use when determining to loan that kind of cash. Please don’t misinterpret my post (Athenshomer too), I am not trying to make any kind of religous argument about how funds are used, why they are needed etc. Just saying that it is not out of the realm of possibility that someone donated that kind of money. On the other hand, I think it is totally possible Big Cecil could have taken some money for Cam’s services.
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I didn’t mean to jump your case, I was more wondering out loud.
Here is the bank that has a note on the “church”.
http://www.capitolcitybank-atl.com/AboutUs/PresidentsCorner/tabid/7512/Default.aspx
maybe there is nothing to it. but who would make such an outlandish claim without some inkling of a story? Ok, who besides one of Finebaum’s callers would make such a claim?
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I am a religious person but people should assign absolutely no credibility to someone because they have “Rev.” or “Bishop” or whatever in front of their name, you have to assess them individually based on their actions just like anyone else.
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FU you Brandon. Why don’t you call me Daddy like the rest of ’em.
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Hahaha.
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Having been a reporter, it’s clear to me when a reporter has been getting a lot of off-the-record stuff from his sources. The ESPN story on Newton seems like a classic example.
You don’t just throw the Church bit in that story without someone in the know laying it out for you that the fulcrum of this investigation is proving whether the money that saved Cecil Newton’s church either originated somewhere in the Auburn “family,” or was in some other way related to his son’s football ability.
As much as I may root against Auburn on Saturdays, what I don’t want to read is a story about how a pastor pimped his son out to save his church. But I have a sickening feeling that that’s where this is headed.
If this story has legs, it would appear Auburn’s bag men have been active in the offseason: http://thebiglead.com/index.php/2010/11/05/recruiting-scandal-auburn-verbal-commitment-cedrick-mcafee/
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Translated: “We would have been in play, but no one associated with MSU has $180,000.”
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A fun situation:
Auburn wins the MNC.
NCAA finally gets to the bottom of the situation, Cam Newton is found to have been part of inappropriate payoffs, and is deemed ineligible.
BCS title revoked, making 2 of the last 7 BCS titles vacated.
Anything that hurts the BCS makes me happy. The more extreme and brutal, the better.
The only way we’ll get a real fix for the BCS situation and the whole agent/paying kids situation is if something horrendous happens. Apparently the Reggie Bush situation wasn’t bad enough, so we need another one.
When CFB is faced with becoming as discredited as cycling, then we might see some fixes.
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Why exactly would the formula for determining the participants in the MNC be at fault here?
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How would it be any more valid if Auburn won a college football playoff and then Newton was declared ineligible?
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How would what be more valid?
I’m saying it would a nightmare for the BCS if Auburn wins the MNC/BCS, Newton is later declared ineligible, and the BCS has to revoke the title again.
That would be 2 out of the last 7 champs invalidated.
And since the BCS doesn’t have the balls to name a replacement champion, it makes them look even worse.
Even funnier would be if, facing this situation, they go ahead and name the replacement.
Then Auburn could have their 2010 BCS title taken away, just to be awarded the 2004 title in its place. 🙂
I love anything that embarrasses the BCS, and I also love things that really shine a light on the broken economics of college football.
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But they’ve already survived a similar scenario with USC and Reggie Bush.
I’m not getting how Newton being declared ineligible embarrasses the BCS. If Auburn won a full blown playoff instead of the BCS title game, what would be different?
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College football survived SMU getting the Death Penalty and Florida only avoiding it because they saw what it did to SMU’s program. I think they’ll manage to live through this with the BCS intact if they so desire. They do have to come up with some way to punish the agents. That’s the only way you have a chance to stop that part of it, and even then they’ll work around the rules as much as possible. As long as there is so much money in major college football there will be corruption.
I would also like to point out that we rabid fans who demand constant success, plunk down money every year for season tickets, and/or watch every Saturday are responsible in some small way for corruption.
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How is implicating all of college football fandom germane to the current situation?
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He was making a general statement about corruption in college football, so I pointed out that fans are somewhat responsible. That’s all.
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Total BS.The only fans responsible are the fans who paid the $$ to Newton’s Daddy, if that happened. Don’t blame me or any of the other fans who just pull for their teams. Mom would be ashamed of you for that. I only hope she didn’t read it on this blog. I’ll never tell her you said that, for sure.
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That’s an awesome handle. I still stand by my statement. If we didn’t make the game so profitable, not wavering in our support even in the face of rampant corruption, the problem(s) would largely subside. However, there are few financial liabilities as it stands. That’s not to absolve those directly responsible. It’s just a statement of fact. Most mostly don’t care about bending or breaking rules (some of which are dumb) so long as the team wins. I’m pretty proud to have a man who seems to try to follow the rules leading the UGA program, myself.
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FAIL.
Fans have nothing to do with the corruption.
It is not our fault that the powers that be have failed utterly and repeatedly to divide up the pie in a more equitable fashion – a fashion that INCLUDES the slaves… er sorry, I mean players.
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The most fun would be if Auburn goes undefeated, is selected for the title game, and Newton is declared ineligible after bowl selection but before the title game. Would never happen, but imagine what that would do to Auburn fans and the chaos that would ensue.
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Man they might have to break out the tear gas and the fire hoses again.
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Due to riots, every WalMart in the surrounding area would be trampled. I can envision the ESPN cover now.
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It there would literally be riots in the streets, they have no idea how serious of an issue this might be. The Auburn Family would be thrown into a murderous rage.
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Trailor parks all over the South would be ablaze.
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No the most fun would be if UGA stomps AU while we are unranked and they are a top team (like 2006). Being the reason they don’t win it all would be much better than them winning it and and it being vacated.
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No the best would be for Georgia to beat Auburn Saturday and take a massive giant shit on their season. If this happens, I can almost guarantee Alabama destroys them on Black Friday.
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+1
Does Rambo have a little Tra Battle in him?
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As much as I am pro-playoff, the BCS is not relevant to this situation (except to the extent that faux titles have caused many fans to act like even bigger fools.) The BCS is a slight upgrade to what we had before 1996, they sometimes provide a compelling match-up that would not have been possible with the old bowl alliances.
This rumor doesn’t hurt the BCS, it hurts CFB and I wish it would go away. It is taking away from a more significant event scheduled for Saturday. Drop it, surely AU donors and administrators weren’t that dumb. I do believe the NCAA is incompetent enough to drag their feet this long after a report was made to them.
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Right now, the BCS and CFB are intertwined. That’s the sucky reality.
Is the BCS better than the absolute garbage we had long before it? Kinda sorta. It does a better job naming a champion, but the problem is its still not that great and its good enough to avoid a real solution.
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The big question I have is this.If the Barners get to the conf title game and lose and LSU runs the table does the Mad Hatter back into the title game without playing in the conf championship? Food for thought. I know for a fact we were in that same place 3 seasons ago and were passed over because we were not playing in the title game. Oh wait never mind the spin masters in Bristol took us out even though we were ranked higher than LSU going into the last week of the season.
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It would take a miraculous turn of events for that to happen. Oregon, Boise, and TCU would all have to lose, and even then LSU would face the same scrutiny for not winning the conference like you mentioned.
I don’t see it, but this is Les Miles we’re talking about here…
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You should replay the last weekend of ’07 in your mind. At the start of the weekend, we were looking at a Mizzou v. West Virginia BCSNCG.
The biggest difference between then and now is that LSU won’t have to beat out the SEC champion (if USC or UF beat a 2 loss AU) to get to the championship game. In ’07, if UGA wasn’t part of a choice set that included another 2 loss SEC team that was also SEC champs, things may have been different.
FWIW, I think you should have to win your league to play for the nat’l title. I also think you shouldn’t have been blown out either. Still, I wasn’t happy with being “left out.”
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Generally speaking, I agree with you. Two reasons why it made sense that year: 1) we had the same SEC record as LSU and TN (pre-split that was an SEC title for UGA) only didn’t get the SECCG for tie-breaker reasons, including some real weird endings for UT in 3 games; and 2) Precedent had already been set with other teams going to the faux title game without winning their conference. Given the higher ranking going in, UGA had to be “manipulated” out of a shot. Another reason to question the legitimacy of BCS titles.
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Yes, but if you lose as badly as we did in Knoxville, you aren’t national championship game material.
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Todd Blackledge and the 1982 Penn State Nittany Lions beg to differ with you, sir!
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What is truth?
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Pilate didn’t hang around for the answer…he couldn’t handle the truth.
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Do you believe in Love after Love?
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No one has addressed this, but is it possible that as the NCAA investigates Newton, Florida might be implicated if it turns out Cecil was pimping Cam during his original recruitment as well? Or is there a statute of limitations on NCAA violations?
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“statute of limitations” with the NCAA? Think about what you’re saying, man.
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Auburn AND Florida going on probation?
Excuse me, I have to clean up a mess here.
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Somewhere, Cheech & Chong are smiling and taking a toke.
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…and now Cam had to leave UF because of academic fraud on top of hot laptops?
I guess he’s a Sociology major at AU, then, amiright?
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Bah! I checked out AU’s website and…
sociology major
narf
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