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This smear campaign against Auburn quarterback Cam Newton has got to stop. Doing my best imitation of Chris Crocker, Leave Cam Alone!
As CBS Sports.com columnist Gregg Doyel wrote in a column on Tuesday, we have to consider the source of the allegations. The person at the source of this firestorm is John Bond, a former Mississippi State quarterback and booster. Not a coach or staff member of the Bulldogs, a booster. Let me repeat that one more time - a booster.
In the ESPN.com story that broke the news, they linked former Bulldogs player Kenny Rogers as the person who sought payment for Newton’s services. Doyel contacted Bond’s attorney Phil Abernathy Monday night, and Abernathy said that Bond never mentioned Rogers’ name.
Bond was on the Buck and Kincade show on Atlanta’s WCNN and about his connection to Rogers on this issue said, “Actually there was two people in between us, but basically yes, that’s what happened.”
So Bond was never directly asked about money from Rogers, but someone who worked with someone who worked with someone was asked? Let me reiterate that Bond is a Mississippi State booster.
That connection is tenuous at best, and seeing how that’s the smoking gun it’s tough to stomach. As Andrew Siciliano of AM 710 KSPN said last week, the SEC is a bunch of high school girls fighting over the same guy.
Now on Tuesday allegations that Newton was on the verge of being suspended for academic cheating before leaving the University of Florida came to light magically, and we’re supposed to make a connection between something that happened two years and schools ago and the alleged pay-for-play scandal?
And today ESPN.com reports that recruiters for Mississippi State have the smoking gun where Newton and his father Cecil Newton have them on tape talking about being paid for Cam’s services. It also alleges that the SEC have known of these supposed conversations for 11 months and have seemingly done nothing about them.
Stop, stop, stop. Are you kidding me with this stuff? This is just people throwing shit on the wall and trying to see what sticks. In the Reggie Bush case it was Bush’s stupidity for refusing to pay back money to a marketer, albeit a shady one, that got him in trouble. It wasn’t allegations from Cade McNown or Tommy Maddox that filled the story - the source of the impropriety was concrete.
It’s sad seeing this athlete who’s having a transcendent season having all of his accomplishments being overshadowed by innuendos and red herrings in this supposed post-Reggie Bush era.
