RT @InsidetheNCAA: Emmert statement on Newton: http://bit.ly/egu1It. | Says key is combo: 1) no knowledge AND 2) no actual benefit received.
RT @InsidetheNCAA: Emmert statement on Newton: http://bit.ly/egu1It. | Says key is combo: 1) no knowledge AND 2) no actual benefit received.
Okay…I get it eligibility is different from enforcement…but I would now suggest that Auburn is clearly going to have problems in the future regarding enforcement (not). According to the article, once the school knows of a violation it is required to declare the student ineligible and report it. However, Auburn waited until this week to take that action. Unless there is something strange that happened on Monday, I would suggest that Auburn has had the same information regarding this for weeks if not months yet somehow waited til Monday to declare him ineligible. Since nothing new has come to light recently, he should have been declared ineligible weeks ago and then the NCAA could have reinstated him if it was appropriate. However, it is clear he was ineligible now for several weeks and Auburn knew it yet took no steps to do anything about it. So they knowingly used an ineligible player.
Of course despite this you can bet the NCAA will do nothing in the future anyway.
And by the way does anyone else think it strange that this all happened so quickly….like maybe this was all pre-arranged with the NCAA? Is Auburn a public school? How about a FOIA request?
Reports indicate that Auburn has been working in close consultation with the NCAA throughout all of this. It’s apparent to me that what happened was, the NCAA made their now-public findings about Cecil Newton available to Auburn on Monday — exquisite, deliberate timing there — at which point the (sham?) declare-him-ineligible-and-apply-for-reinstatement dance began. I perceive no risk to Auburn unless additional findings implicating AU’s program (not just Cam/Cecil and Mississippi State) are uncovered.
Of course despite this you can bet the NCAA will do nothing in the future anyway.
Careful. That’s what the USC haters said for years about Reggiegate. They were utterly convinced the NCAA would let ‘SC off scot-free because of a desire to protect a big-money program. Turned out to be dead wrong. So I’m not buying a conspiracy theory about protecting Auburn.
That said, the NCAA has shot itself in the foot here, in terms of using any future “should have known” standard to hang Auburn, because by coming out now and saying there’s no evidence Cam Newton knew about this, the NCAA has eliminated any possibility that Auburn “should have known” unless of course the NCAA itself also should have known. Thus, barring a smoking gun proving that Auburn knew (not just should have known) more than it’s let on, or additional evidence of wrongdoing by Auburn itself, I don’t see how this season can be in retroactive jeopardy.
That said, the investigation may well reveal more crap tangentially related to this. Remember, the FBI is involved. There were a lot of apocalyptic rumblings a few weeks ago about this being the biggest scandal ever in CFB, or at least the biggest since SMU, going well beyond the Newtons and Kenny Rogers. We’ll see. This may well not be over yet.
Of course they worked closely with the NCAA, they knew they had their back.