With the white-hot focus on Ohio State, Oregon and North Carolina lately, it's easy to think of The Scandal of the 2010 season as ancient history, if you think of it at all. True, the charges that Auburn quarterback/�bermensch Cam Newton was shopped by his father to the highest bidder as the nation's most coveted juco recruit in 2010 came in last November like a tidal wave no college football fan can forget. But they receded again almost as quickly after the NCAA declared Newton eligible to play in the SEC and BCS championship games, leaving no apparent damage. No harm, no foul, right? Auburn passed the test, right?
So thought Tiger fans, and according to the New York Times' Pete Thamel, so thought Tiger coach Gene Chizik. Or at least he did, until an NCAA rep set the record straight during last month's SEC meetings in Destin (emphasis added):
Julie Roe Lach, the N.C.A.A.'s vice president for enforcement, made a presentation to the group, 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 N.C.A.A.'s investigation into Cam Newton and why the N.C.A.A. had not publicly announced that the investigation was over. Chizik complained that the inquiry's open-ended nature had hurt Auburn's recruiting and he followed up at least three times, leading to a testy exchange.
"You'll know when we're finished," Roe Lach told Chizik, according to several coaches who were at the meeting. "And we're not finished."
Three SEC hoops coaches at the meeting confirmed the exchange on the record, including Vanderbilt's Kevin Stallings, who told Thamel that Roe Lach was "serious," and that the NCAA in general is trying to send a message to "bad elements in college athletics" that it's "bigger and more aggressive" about enforcement than it's been in the past.
What no one has suggested, however, is that the NCAA (or anyone else) has actually uncovered new evidence that might lead to a different verdict than the "all clear" it gave Newton in December despite finding Cecil Newton guilty of soliciting a six-figure payment from Mississippi State for his son's services. Then, the decision was based on three improbable conclusions:
a) There was no evidence or direct allegations that Cam Newton knew he was being shopped by his father or anyone else;
b) There was no evidence or direct allegations that Cam or Cecil Newton solicited Auburn for anything;
And, despite the elder Newton's alleged overtures to Mississippi State, c) there was no evidence or direct allegations that Cam or Cecil were actually paid anything by anyone.
To many, many observers, that looked like a copout, or hypocrisy, or ?�at best ?�an outrageous loophole that somehow tolerates asking as long as it doesn't lead to accepting. But all these months later, the bottom line is the same: Unless evidence emerges that Cam Newton knew he was being shopped, that he or his father solicited Auburn or that he actually accepted improper benefits, the "all clear" verdict will stand.
At this point, we still don't have any way of knowing whether the NCAA has made any headway along any of those lines. But even if he picked the wrong setting, it's hard to blame Chizik for wondering how long it plans to keep looking.
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
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