Time to review this past week in college football.
Music to listen to: Breakout by Sean Paul
I got a request to talk about Cameron Newton situation at Auburn and I’ve held back from making my initial proclamations because of the sensationalized sports media, especially ESPN, that has covered this event.
The beauty of this modern era of sports journalism is the immediate access we have to information. If I wanted to get analysis of Arsenal’s last three English Premier League matches, review this past NHRA season (war John Force!) or anything else in between, we have access to it.
Another good thing has also been the increased amount of sources to cover investigative sports. For example, if the Reggie Bush scandal happened in 1979 instead of 2009, it would have had to have been broken by Sports Illustrated, Sport Magazine or maybe The Sporting News to cover its entire scope.
In current time, Yahoo! Sports, an internet sports site that didn’t exist 15 years ago, was not only able to break the Bush story, but start an attempt by the top amateur sport entity in the United States and the second-biggest one outside of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), to change its entire culture of operations.
However, along with Yahoo! Sports, ESPN.com, SI.com, FoxSports.com and many others of similar value, stories like the Newton situation can be sensationalized without gaining the complete information needed to make an ultimate conclusion.
It seemed like every three or four hours when the story first broke with Joe Schad of ESPN a little more than two weeks ago. Its gone from Newton’s father fielding offers up to $200,000 for the services of his son to Mississippi State trying to negotiate a “hometown” discount of $180,000 to get Newton to become a Bulldog to the unfortunately named Kenny Rodgers (seriously, I’m expecting him to release a new album by the end of the year) acting like one of those bad booster/former player that you would expect to be written badly in a very special Friday Night Lights episode.
Who are we to believe?
Do I think Cam Newton took extra benefits in his recruitment to Auburn? Right now I say no but that can change in a minute when more information is received.
If I was Auburn, would I still play Newton? You’ve already played every game this season with him, so if the NCAA declares him ineligible, you will lose your entire season anyway. May as well go for the national title.
Would I vote for Newton for the Heisman trophy if I thought he was the most deserving player? Yes. Some voters are worried about a Reggie Bush II situation taking place, meaning that they will vote for somebody who will lose the award, therefore “wasting” their vote. They don’t want to cheat someone like Kellen Moore or LaMichael James of the Heisman. I understand that but I would recommend waiting until the last moment to place my vote if I was a voter..
OK, on to my top-15…
1- Oregon: At this stage of the season, its about survive and advance. I’m not going to drop them for barely winning a conference game on the road.
2- Auburn: The defense is going to have to improve if the Tigers want to finish its gantlet of Alabama, South Carolina and hopefully for them a BCS title game.
3- TCU: San Diego State isn’t the 1994 Nebraska squad but not chopped liver. The Horned Frogs took care of their business against a decent team but the voters didn’t see it that way.
4- Boise State: I didn’t know that beating Idaho made Boise worthy of being the third team in the nation. Also, that Oregon State win isn’t looking as good. I’ll get to that game later.
5- LSU
6- Stanford: I’ve looked at bowl projections and if Oregon and Auburn wins out, it looks like the Cardinal can end up in either the Holiday Bowl or Alamo Bowl. That’s a joke. Why does the Big East have to have a team in the BCS bowls?
7- Wisconsin
8- Ohio State
9- Nebraska
10- Alabama: Very interested to see what happens for Alabama’s bowl prospects if the Crimson Tide defeats Auburn on Thanksgiving weekend. You know that a BCS bowl would love to have an excuse to get them in one of those games but it looks like LSU would be the more deserving squad over Alabama. However, if Arkansas beats LSU, which isn’t as daunting as you may think, what happens then?
11- Michigan State- If Wisconsin, Ohio State and Michigan State ends up in a three way tie for the Big Ten title at the end of the season, the conference will go to the BCS standing to determine a winner. I guess that’s better than the olden days when the conference coaches would vote on who they thought should win the title. Seriously, that happened in 1973. The conference alignment next season will take care of this issue naturally.
12- Oklahoma State
13- Arkansas
14- Virginia Tech: How did the Hokies lose to James Madison?
15- South Carolina: How about the Gamecocks finally getting to Atlanta for the first time to compete for the SEC title. As a Vandy fan, I’m actually happy to see this take place. Any SEC fan outside of Florida, Tennessee and Georgia would like to see some new blood get a shot. I’d rather see Kentucky in Atlanta representing the East over everyone accept Tennessee any day of the week.
Other thoughts to take home with you…
-I talked crap about Southern California earlier this year saying that the Trojans were going to be the 9th best team in the Pac-10 but they are 7-3, so I have to eat my words for now. Still think that the program is screwed with Lane Kiffin at the helm but this year hasn’t been as big of a disaster as I thought.
-Can we get a scholarship for the security guard who took out the unruly fan during the Fresno State/Nevada football game from this past weekend. My man Jared C. works for the Bulldogs so I’m going to place a call for the guard. He deserves it.
-I’m been debating which situation is worse between Florida and Texas and I have to say it’s the Gators.
Unless Texas completely collapses to incredible low levels, the Longhorns are still going to be the co-favorites in the Big 12 with Oklahoma for the near future.
You can leapfrog one squad to make it back to the top but look at what Florida has to deal with.
The South Carolina roster outside of its starting quarterback are freshman and sophomores. The Gamecocks aren’t going anywhere. Georgia’s track record shows that they will be competitive whether its under Mark Richt or not. Tennessee isn’t going to be this low forever. Kentucky isn’t a pushover and Vanderbilt is…well, I was on a roll there for a while and that’s just the SEC East.
The Gators aren’t going to have a 3-7 season it’s not outside the realm of possibility for Florida to start having some 8-4 seasons with consistency, which most programs can only dream of but not at Florida.
Those are my thoughts, what are yours?
The Sports Inquirer 
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