FOR A QUICK EFFORT, IT'S NOT A BAD REWRITE
Here, let's just dismiss the idiocy first. Oh, DURR REPORTERS BIASED CRAP SOURCING. Everyone was working on this story, and message boards and Twitter pushed it to critical mass yesterday when word got out. We heard about it from multiple employees of multiple SEC universities yesterday. ESPN put Forde, Schlabach, and Low's name on the common header. If they're wrong, facts can't be established. Attacking the sourcing is the stupidest fucking move aside from writing whatever Mike Bianchi writes about this, which is ohhhhh boy real herp derp this morning, so it's beyond some new, unpushed envelope of idiocy to just attack the messengers. It's the first play in the political playbook, and if you'd like to play that game of Carville vs. Rove you should go to 2004. It's a nice year, and you can make some serious fake money in the real estate market there. WHY DO YOU HATE AUBURN/AMERICA/WHATEVER I LOVE AND DISMISS HIGHLY LIKELY SHIT FOR?
So if you deign to not embarrass yourself--"Did you see cash leave Bobby Lowder's hand and go into Cecil Newton's"--you can keep reading, and then just induct the obvious: Cecil Newton sold his son to the highest bidder, and that bidder in this market was Auburn. Cam Newton should be able to do this to some extent, of course, which is why Dan Wetzel's piece is three-quarters right in that this is just another chapter in the long history of the inefficient black market of SEC recruiting and the larger scheme of NCAA amateur athletics.
Oh, do you have any other obvious points? Let's kill those too.
- Other schools do it too! Yes they do, and you're confusing variables. Stay focused.
- He's innocent until proven guilty! This isn't a legal case, and the NCAA doesn't have police, and this doesn't need to be held to the same standard. At least we think they don't have police: you can't really be too sure, so Pat Dye might want to lay low for a while. If you're sticking to the legal standard here, you're also the kind of person who believes those bumps on your partner's genitals prove nothing, and are probably just the result of an unwise and unfortunate switch in detergents.
- "Haters!" If you use this defense in anything in any form of life, you are a stumpfucking idiot. There is no variation to this rule, and it is ironclad and true in every situation. If that's all you've got, here's a stump, and here's some soft music and candles and some lube. Have at it.
- The NCAA is corrupt blah blah--yes, yes it is. Focus. This story is more interesting for the landscape, not the effects or the final impact it's going to have. Newton's not going to lose eligibility, and Auburn's likely not going to face any kind of sanction over this.
The most distasteful thing about this is that a grown-ass man who runs five churches in Georgia is most likely pocketing this money tax-free through a donation to his church, and that there's plenty of other teams in the SEC and beyond who, forced into the black market by the rules of the NCAA, funnel money from profitable tax-free organizations through other profitable tax-free charitable organizations. That the grown-ass man is meddling in his twenty year old son's affairs is disgusting, and if Cecil Newton's nice truck, designer jeans, and bling came out of that money, it's even more stomach-turning. Pay for your own shit, or you're the one renting the mule, asswipe.
It's a pox-on-all-of-you situation with the least culpable person being Newton, who's guilty only of being talented and having family, a curse in any time or situation. It's not the "corruption" of the system that irritates us: it's an inefficient market, and the ecosystem of parasitic shitbags that live in its margins. (Bomani Jones was fantastic on this angle this morning, btw, and worth a listen.)
A SHUPERB DEFENSH. Lou Holth may have the best perspective on this, of coursh.
Absence makes the heart grow fondant.
OH, AND: If Urban really was the guy who pushed this all to happen, then LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL <----this to infinity. Of course , this is coming from the Auburn Rivals, who insists that nothing happened and that everyone working on this story are haters. #sexystumpmusic
ONE FINAL AND OH AND: The timing of this could not be funnier.
GOODNIGHT, SWEET PRINCELY PERSON WHO COULD NOT PASS THE BALL. If you missed GT/VT last night, you missed a few raucous moments at the end, namely where Tech's offense ripped back down the field for a tying score only to watch it evaporate on a very, very late kickoff return for TD on the ensuing possession. Got to the open thread and see the reactions: the All-Caps get broken out quickly and in force toward the end.
The important note is that all of this happened without Josh Nesbitt, whose regular season is done after he suffered a broken arm during a tackle on an interception return.
OF COURSE HE'S NOT. Fulmer excuses himself from the Minnesota coaching search, because it's cold up there, and because must return to the SEC and top Urban Meyer's derivative snitching to reclaim his crown.
IF YOU PAINT IT OVER, WE WILL SIMPLY PAINT IT AGAIN. Florida UAA folks painted over a FIRE ADDAZIO sign, which they're free to do since the wall has historically been a common area reserved for public expression (particularly student expression, but not necessarily exclusively so.) It also means this will be repainted the minute the short-side option with Brantley