Lucky for Auburn there wasn’t a game yesterday.

It’s all over on the Camgate front.

Auburn University football student-athlete Cam Newton is immediately eligible to compete, according to a decision today by the NCAA student-athlete reinstatement staff. The NCAA concluded on Monday that a violation of amateurism rules occurred, therefore Auburn University declared the student-athlete ineligible yesterday for violations of NCAA amateurism rules.

When a school discovers an NCAA rules violation has occurred, it must declare the student-athlete ineligible and may request the student-athlete’s eligibility be reinstated. Reinstatement decisions are made by the NCAA national office staff and can include conditions such as withholding from competition and repayment of extra benefits. Newton was reinstated without any conditions.

Bottom line, they ruled that Cam didn’t know what his daddy was up to and as a result neither he nor Auburn should receive punishment.  So basically, if you want to sell your kid to the highest bidder, just don’t tell him about it.

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UPDATE: So much for precedent.

The announcer, the pirate and The Donald

Even if you assume that Jon Gruden is some sort of coaching guru, I still don’t get the interest Miami is rumored to have in hiring him as its next head coach, although it would evidently make Jeff Schultz’ task of recalling the names of ACC coaches easier.  The two problems I see with his hire are first, he’s got little to no experience recruiting players, especially in this day and age when it takes virtually a year-round effort, and second, who’s to say he won’t be off like a shot at the first NFL head coaching offer he gets?

Personally, I think they’ve got better options out there, but don’t take my word for it.  Take that of a certain unemployed head coach who is some sort of coaching guru on the D-1 level instead:

“They could hire me and we’d have one decade after another of success with students that graduate and don’t get into trouble,” said Leach, “or they can hire somebody else.”

And, best of all, considering their financial shape, at least one prominent supporter believes that Leach’s hire would be a bargain.

“You made a big mistake when you did not take my advice and hire Mike Leach of Texas Tech … and you can now get him for the right price,” Trump wrote to Shalala.

Connecting Mike Leach with the South Florida talent base is a truly scary thought.  Especially if he can find a decent defensive coordinator.  Plus, I bet Jeff can recall his name just as easily as Gruden’s.

Envy and jealousy, asses in the seats edition

Nice little zinger from John Taylor at College Football Talk this morning, in reference to the rumor of UMass moving to the MAC in football:

… One more tidbit regarding this UMass situation: if they do move to Div. 1-A, they would look to play several home games at Gillette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots.  Their current home stadium seats just 17,000 fans, which, as noted by the paper, would be unacceptable at the next level.  Unless it occurred at Miami, where it would then be known as an average-sized 2010 home crowd.

Bip!

The price of silence

Dennis Dodd speculates that win, lose or draw, we won’t hear from Cam Newton (again) after Saturday’s game in the Georgia Dome.

One or the other is going to happen Saturday at the SEC championship game.

Cam Newton has not been available to the media for the past two games against Georgia and Alabama. That will be an issue this week in the SEC championship game. As you can see from the language below, all players and coaches must be made available to the media in an open locker room after the game or a school risks being fined.

I believe Auburn will take the hit. Why change now when the punishment is, say, $10,000? Joe Paterno absorbed a $15,000 fine a couple of years ago in the Rose Bowl when he didn’t open his locker room.

I was at the Georgia game. I don’t believe this is Auburn’s decision. I think the school has been told by the NCAA and/or the FBI to clam up. They don’t want the media to have the opportunity to ask Cam pointed questions.

If that’s true, were I Auburn, I know where I’d send the bill.

If that’s true.

250.86

I mentioned the other day how good Aaron Murray’s performance in the Tech game was in the context of conference passer ratings this season, but I was curious to see how it stacked up against other Georgia starting quarterbacks in the Richt era.

Answer:  not too shabby.  Here are the best performances I found from his four predecessors.

• Joe Cox – 256.0 (Arkansas 2009)
• Matt Stafford – 216.61 (Kentucky 2008)
• D.J. Shockley – 236.57 (Boise State 2005)
• David Greene – 232.16 (Vanderbilt 2002)

(By the way, since I’m sure some of you are wondering, Greene’s rating in that epic 51-7 beatdown of the ’02 Georgia Tech team was 218.)

Murray’s passer rating was also the highest yielded by Tech’s defense in the past five seasons.  To give you some perspective on that, during that time only two other quarterbacks notched ratings in excess of 200 against the Jackets.

You know what’s even more impressive about the job he did Saturday night?  He wasn’t a running threat.  It was the only game of the season in which he didn’t have a run for positive yardage.  I suspect that the talk about his physical condition after the Auburn game wasn’t a case of blowing smoke.

All this from a redshirt freshman quarterback.  I think we can quit saying he’s going to be special.  He already is.

Greg McGarity’s work is done, at least on one front.

Because some of you like to get your lives in the fall organized early, here’s how Georgia’s 2012 home football schedule shapes up after adding Florida Atlantic:

• 09.01 – Buffalo
• 09.15 – Florida Atlantic
• 09.29 – Ole Miss
• 10.06 – Tennessee
• 10.13 – Vanderbilt
• 11.03 – Georgia Southern
• 11.24 – Georgia Tech

I foresee a lot of noon starts there.