9/6 Skarbinsky Article

[AUChizad]

http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2011/09/dan_mullens_shot_at_revenge_ag.html

Dan Mullen's shot at revenge against Auburn for Cam Newton is long gone
Published: Tuesday, September 06, 2011, 5:01 AM
By Kevin Scarbinsky, Birmingham News

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - Now it can be told. I've been able to conclude what a lot of college football insiders have suspected for some time.

Dan Mullen is the man behind the curtain.

That's right.

Without him pulling the strings, Urban Meyer wouldn't have won one BCS title at Florida, let alone two.

What? Oh, sorry. Wrong curtain.

You want to know if Mullen was the hidden wizard dispensing information about the recruitment of Cam Newton last fall that threatened to derail his Heisman run and Auburn's BCS championship chase.

It's an obvious question this week. Mississippi State's preparing to play Auburn for the first time since the NCAA found Newton's father, Cecil, and former Mississippi State player Kenny Rogers guilty of working together on a pay-for-play plan to send the quarterback to State.

Mullen is 0 for 2 against Auburn and Gene Chizik - 0 for 3 if you count losing Cam Newton to them - and this would appear to be his best shot at payback.

There's only one problem with painting Auburn-Mississippi State as a revenge game for the Bulldogs and their head coach.

It's not.

They already played that game and lost.

On and off the field.

Mississippi State admitted in a Nov. 10, 2010, statement that it blew the whistle when "it contacted the SEC office in January 2010 regarding an issue relating to its recruitment of Cam Newton."

What issue?

State explained two days later in a Nov. 12, 2010, statement: "During the recruitment of a football prospective student-athlete, Mississippi State was approached with an offer to provide an extra benefit. This offer was refused."

State hasn't explained why it continued to recruit Newton after that offer or why it didn't alert the SEC office until after Newton committed to Auburn in late December 2009.

Mississippi State took aim at Newton in person last September in Starkville, and the Bulldogs did a nice job of slowing him down, but Auburn escaped 17-14. That would've been the best revenge for Mullen, to put a stop to a championship season before it started rolling, but he could've taken one last shot.

If he were the man/wizard behind the curtain trying to get Newton declared ineligible before the season ended. Chizik used that phrase last November to question who was leaking allegations about Newton's past.

"Is there a wizard behind the curtain? I don't know," Chizik said then. "Is there one, is there two, are there 10? I don't know, and I don't care."

No one has presented hard evidence against Mullen on that front, but someone asked Chizik that question Sunday anyway. He didn't blame Mullen, but neither did he absolve him of blame. Instead, in very few carefully chosen words, the Auburn coach left his true feelings to your imagination.

"I've moved on," Chizik said. "I'm worried about Mississippi State."

Mullen was a little more talkative on the subject on his Sunday teleconference, but he didn't let his guard down, either.

"The Cam Newton situation, to me, ended about two years ago" when he committed to Auburn, Mullen said.

OK, but that's not true for the rest of the college football world. Despite the fact that no reliable source has presented any credible evidence in public that anyone connected to Auburn provided any impermissible benefits to the Newton family, the Newton "situation" won't die.

No matter how unwise it is to reach a conclusion ahead of the facts, the conventional wisdom on this issue was captured last month by Doug Zeit, the attorney for Rogers.

Zeit told me that Rogers "had no dealings with Auburn in regard to Cam Newton. Zero." Zeit said that Rogers and Cecil Newton, at least working in concert, "didn't solicit anything from (Auburn)." Zeit said that neither he nor Rogers had information to support the vague, unsubstantiated claim that a third party funneled benefits from an Auburn supporter to the Newton family.

But?

"I can tell you one thing," Zeit said. "We always assumed there was a third, fourth or fifth party. We still believe someone paid (the Newtons) money. It just stretches credulity to believe otherwise."

And I always assumed attorneys were supposed to use facts to make a case. In this case, Zeit didn't.

Fact is, there's nothing Mullen can do about Newton now, but he can try to make a case Saturday in Jordan-Hare Stadium that he's the best third-year head coach in the SEC.

There's only one other candidate for that designation. Until Mullen can beat him and win a postseason game bigger than the Gator Bowl, that title belongs to Chizik.

[Buzz Killington]

I honestly never thought I'd see Scarbinsky join in on the deflection like that.  He's always been a pretty straight shooter.

[wesfau2]

I honestly never thought I'd see Scarbinsky join in on the deflection like that.  He's always been a pretty straight shooter.

I don't see any deflection.

He says that Rogers' own attorney says that Rogers and Cecil never worked together to solicit Auburn.

He then blasts the lawyer for making a leap of (il)logic without any factual basis.

[JR4AU]

I don't see any deflection.

He says that Rogers' own attorney says that Rogers and Cecil never worked together to solicit Auburn.

He then blasts the lawyer for making a leap of (il)logic without any factual basis.

I concur.

[GH2001]

I don't see any deflection.

He says that Rogers' own attorney says that Rogers and Cecil never worked together to solicit Auburn.

He then blasts the lawyer for making a leap of (il)logic without any factual basis.

Cmon weskie. He's no jay g tate.

[Buzz Killington]

I don't see any deflection.

He says that Rogers' own attorney says that Rogers and Cecil never worked together to solicit Auburn.

He then blasts the lawyer for making a leap of (il)logic without any factual basis.

I guess I need to take the tin foil cap off every now and then.