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It looks like some trouble for Auburn and Heisman candidate quarterback Cam Newton. In an ESPN.com story former Mississippi State quarterback John Bond has claimed that his former teammate Kenny Rogers (not the pitcher or singer) claimed to be representing Newton and asked for $180,000 in order for the Bulldogs to land the quarterback while he was being recruited last year. Bond claims that Rogers said that other schools were offering to pay $200,000, but since Newton had a relationship with head coach Dan Mullen at Florida he would offer a discount. Mullen was the offensive coordinator at Florida during Newton’s brief tenure there hidden in the depth charts behind Tim Tebow.
So it looks like it’s the year of the agents in college sports this year, huh?
Let’s break this down.
Pro Cam Newton: This could be a case where it was a school spurned by Newton so they just want to throw anything in the air. After all Newton’s father Cecil Newton denied that any money went to Newton or his family telling ESPN.com, “If Rogers tried to solicit money from Mississippi State, he did it on his own, without our knowledge." Cecil Newton to this point has cooperated with the NCAA investigation submitting personal financial statements and records from Holy Zion Center of Deliverance in Newnan, GA where he is the pastor.
Con Cam Newton: While everyone has painted a sterling picture of Newton, not to mention he has been very media savvy throughout the season, we must not forget that he got into trouble at Florida for stealing a laptop. By the way, what is it with quarterbacks and stealing laptops? Can you answer that Jeremiah Masoli?
Also where there’s smoke there’s fire, and almost every allegation of this sort that has come up has proven to be true. See USC and North Carolina on those counts.
Newton does have a checkered past, although it doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s guilty and we’ve got to hang him. If the Reggie Bush investigation is any indication, we won’t know anything until Newton is well into his NFL career. But until then it will be interesting to see how Heisman and poll voters treat this issue. I’m sure they don’t want to have the embarrassment of USC all over again, so they will tread very carefully over this.
There is one thing that is certain. This system has been dysfunctional for a very long time. Whether it’s paying the student-athletes or having the professional leagues team with the NCAA to come down hard on the agents and runners, this needs to be remedied right away or else this issue will suffer the same fate as steroids in baseball - such oversaturation of exposure that will dull the public into apathy.
Now onto the real college games, there is one game everyone needs to watch and it’s between the LAist No. 2 vs. No. 5 teams: TCU at Utah. This for all purposes will determine who wins the Mountain West Conference and who will probably be the front runner to play in the BCS Championship Game or at the very least play in the Rose Bowl. For a game with such big ramifications, it’s only natural it will be aired on CBS College Sports.
I already know what people are going to say. “What in the name of the whore of Babylon is CBS College Sports?” It’s the same knock about Versus that we’ve all had to listen when they got the NHL cable rights. Admittedly they’re not the most visible channels, so rather than bitch and moan I will do a public service. Instead of listening to people complain, “I can’t find it,” even though all they have to do is just take a minute to scroll through the guide thingee I’ll do some of the work for you.
Here are the channel numbers for CBS College Sports for the various cable and satellite services:
The channel might be on one of the packages you might not have, but if you have it you should have no excuse now.
9:00 a.m.
Florida at Vanderbilt. KDOC.
Baylor at Oklahoma State. FSWest (9:30 a.m.)
Maryland at Miami (FL). ESPNU.
Illinois at Michigan. ESPN.
UC Davis at North Dakota. Fox College Sports Central (10:00 a.m.)
Lehigh at Holy Cross. Fox College Sports Atlantic (10:00 a.m.)
Air Force at Army. CBS College Sports.
LAist Pick: Baylor at Oklahoma State
12:30 p.m.
Alabama at LSU. CBS.
Washington at Oregon. ABC.
Hawaii at Boise State. ESPNU.
Northwestern at Penn State. ESPN2.
California at Washington State. Fox College Sports Pacific (1:00 p.m.)
TCU at Utah. CBS College Sports.
Pennsylvania at Princeton. Versus (Noon.)
LAist Pick: TCU at Utah
5:00 p.m.
Arizona at Stanford. ABC.
Louisiana-Lafayette at Mississippi. ESPNU.
Arkansas at South Carolina. ESPN (4:00 p.m.)
Oklahoma at Texas A&M. FS Prime Ticket (4:00 p.m.)
Texas at Kansas State. ESPN2.
Tennessee at Memphis. CBS College Sports.
Oregon State at UCLA. Versus (4:00 p.m.)
LAist Pick: Arizona at Stanford
7:30 p.m.
Arizona State at USC. FS Prime Ticket.
