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BLOG: The Heisman, Cam Newton & ESPN

This past Saturday on ESPN there were two specials on back to back.  First it was the Heisman Trophy presentation with Cam Newton winning pretty easily.  The show after that was brilliant scheduling.

You have to be under of rock or just not care about college sports if you haven't heard about the Cam Newton scandal.  But for those who don't a quick recap.  Newton's father was disciplined by the NCAA for reportedly shopping around his son's services to a couple major universities.  Cam was cleared of any wrong doing and was eligible to play the rest of the season.  Now my personal opinion is that something stinks about this whole situation but that's a story for another blog.

After the Heisman Trophy was awarded to Cam Newton ESPN aired another on of its very successful 30 fo 30 films.  This one was about the Rise and fall of the SMU football program.  The irony here is why SMU collapsed in the 1980s.  SMU received heavy sanctions more than once for paying players to come play football at SMU.  It got so bad at SMU that they received the so-called "Death Penalty" from the NCAA.  This death penalty meant no football for the 1987 season and SMU decided on their own not to play football in 1988 as well.  Two years without football at a major university is completely unheard of.  SMU did start playing agin in 1989 but it took until just recently before some respectability has come back to SMU football.

At the end of the 30 for 30 it showed more recent cases of FBS universities receiving sanctions for breaking the rules.  Including the Reggie Bush situation in which he gave back his Heisman Trophy and USC lost a National Championship.  Only time will tell what has really happened in this Cam Newton situation and I hope for Cam's sake and the sake of Auburn University that no wrong doing occurred.  The last thing they would want is this huge black eye on arguably it's greatest season.

Andy Snakovsky – 1057 The Fan staff writer

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