Why Cam Newton is bad for college football

Dear Auburn Fan,

This college football season has been one hell of a ride for you. Thrilling come from behind victories, huge wins over perennial rivals, a Heisman Trophy winner and a trip to the National Championship game. There's not much more that you can ask for as a fan.

But not everyone is reveling in your success. Cam Newton has polarized the college football community with his on-field performance and his off-field controversy, made all the more intriguing by the fact that the controversy was captained by his FATHER, and not Cam himself. (It should be noted however that he and his father are not estranged and this was not a rogue dad trying to trade in his son for cash. He did thank his father in his Heisman trophy acceptance speech, though his father was not in attendance - good PR move.)

I'm sure it's frustrating to have so many fans of the game and pundits attempting to tarnish your dream season by focusing on Cam Newton's off the field dealings.  You could, of course, just ignore all of the noise and just be thrilled your playing in the BCS Championship.  Or you can get up in arms and engage in the fray, rushing to the defense of your Heisman trophy winner.  But before you decide the latter, there are a few things to consider.

1. He's a mercenary. A hired gun. (And I'm only partially joking on the "hired" part). He's going to swoop in, spend a year at Auburn, and bolt for the NFL. He could have just as easily donned a Miss St uniform or an Alabama uniform, or stayed at Florida. But he chose you. Whether that choice was influenced by a financial transaction, we may never know. But if he wasn't wearing your uniform, you'd be crying foul.
2. He doesn't meet the alleged Heisman criteria.  The first line of the Heisman Trust Mission Statement outlines that the award "recognizes the outstanding college football player whose performance best exhibits the pursuit of excellence with integrity".  Cam Newton deserves it hands down if it wasn't for the last two words.  That caveat should, in effect, disqualify him.  Cam Newton, while dynamic on the field in his single season at Auburn, is a college football player who first was caught stealing a laptop, left Florida before they had the chance to kick him out on allegations of academic fraud, and was surrounded by controversy almost his entire Heisman season around allegations of bidding out his services to the highest bidder.  Cam Newton himself continues to refer to his decision to attend Auburn as "a business decision".  If the award is going to be strictly about performance, then just leave integrity out of the mission statement and don't pay lip service to it.  But to put Newton ahead of Andrew Luck and Kellen Moore and even pretend that the award has the slightest thing to do with integrity is a farce.



This isn't the first time Cam Newton's integrity
has been called into question

3. He's no Tim Tebow. As much as most of us were nauseated by all of the Tim Tebow montages throughout his career, it's hard to deny that this guy was special.  He was everything you want in a college football player - charismatic, passionate, a fierce competitor.  He played four years at the same school, and stayed for his senior year.  He performed on and off the field.  While Cam Newton was stealing laptops, Tim Tebow was probably mentoring disadvantaged orphans in the Philippines.  I mean, c'mon - Tebow wore penned scripture verses in his eye black.  So as much as Verne Lundquist insists that Cam Newton is the second coming of Tebow, Newton is no Tim Tebow.

I have no dog in this fight, and I have no preconceived bias against Auburn.  Quite the contrary - I have always thought highly of Auburn folk.  I attended a national intercollegiate conference in college with Auburn students and found them very pleasant.  I even traded one of them for an Auburn hat.  Prior to that, I had a poster of Bo Jackson on my wall growing up, and "Bo Knows Bo" was the first autobiography I ever read.  I have no reason to dislike Auburn, even though I'm admittedly annoyed by the sports establishment's SEC bias despite the fact that they rarely are able to support their alleged dominance with wins against quality out of conference opponents.  (While they have performed very well in the national championship game in recent years and the top of the conference is always very good, they regular season out of conference schedule and bowl top to bottom bowl performance do not warrant the continual reverence the conference receives.)  My position, and that of many others across the country, has nothing to do with our opinion of Auburn at large.

I would also contend that Cam Newton has gotten off pretty easy in light of the allegations in comparison to Reggie Bush.  I don't view their controversies as being all that different.  But I do believe the fact that Newton's came to light while he is still playing has helped him tremendously.  It was much easier to deny Reggie Bush's dominance once everyone was viewing it in retrospect years latter.  At the time he was defending himself, he was a multi-millionaire NFL star running back who was much easier to villanize after he had already "got his".  To the contrary, Cam Newton is still out there "fighting through the distraction" as a college kid, flashing his winning smile and playing the victim in this whole situation.  The media is by and large treating him as a wounded puppy, and putting on the "hey, just leave the kid alone" face and giving him a substantial benefit of the doubt.

It's got to be tough as a Heisman voter though.  What do you do?  Judge the kid in the court of public opinion and deny him in spite of his recent dominance?  This is a hard sell, though admittedly not that hard given the circumstances surrounding his departure from Florida.  Do you give him a pass because it was supposedly just his dad going after the dollars and not him?  And what about the fact that there really isn't any proof that anything happened at Auburn?  I ask you though, how many of you would get your car or house appraised and begin shopping it on the market, only to then just give it away?  Doesn't seem very plausible, does it.

The real problem here is not whether or not Cam Newton is guilty of the allegations.  The real problem is the precedent that has been created in the sport.  Future college athletes now have a blueprint for how to game the system - have a close family member shop your recruitment, but make sure to maintain plausible deniability throughout.  And just don't be stupid like Reggie Bush and take your payment in hard, traceable assets like a house.  But even if Newton gets caught down the line, there's a blueprint for that too.  Chizik can bolt to the NFL right before the decision comes down.  Kiffin will be out of a job by then, and he's already proven he's perfect SEC material.