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There have been plenty of questions about Auburn quarterback Cameron Newton this season.
That’s what happens when your father shops you in a $180,000 pay-for-play scheme, you’re declared ineligible by your school as Newton was earlier this week and then reinstated a day later by the NCAA.
And while lots of questions remain about Newton’s controversial saga, there aren’t any on the field. Not anymore after an MVP performance in which he accounted for 408 offensive yards and a career-best six touchdowns Saturday in his team’s 56-17 thrashing of South Carolina in the SEC championship game.
Because now he’s the answer to who will win the Heisman Trophy during next Saturday night’s award ceremony. He’s also the reason Auburn will play Oregon in the national championship game Jan. 10 after the Bowl Championship Series standings are released Sunday.
But actually, some still have a question about Newton on the field. It’s whether there’s ever been a better college football player.
“That’s a good question,” South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier said.
And it’s one about Newton that Auburn coach Gene Chizik is actually willing to answer.
“He’s probably the best football player I’ve ever seen,” Chizik said.
That’s a declaration with meaning coming from someone who was defensive coordinator at Texas when the Longhorns won the 2005 national championship behind the heroics of electrifying dual-threat quarterback Vince Young. It made Newton bust out in a broad, cheeky smile and finally made him say what people have been saying about him all season.
“Wow,” Newton said.
That’s pretty much all that can be said on the field about Newton, who Saturday joined former Florida teammate Tim Tebow and Nevada's Colin Kaepernick (who also accomplished the feat Saturday) as the only players in Football Bowl Subdivision history to have 20 rushing and 20 passing touchdowns in a season. And Newton proved that dual-threat versatility against South Carolina by hitting wide-open receivers for 335 passing yards and four touchdowns as well as running over defenders for 73 yards and two TDs.
That left Spurrier, a Heisman winner himself, shaking his head and smirking in frustration, especially after Newton’s 51-yard, tipped, Hail Mary touchdown pass to close the first half.
“He’s almost a one-man show,” Spurrier said.
Just like Newton’s celebratory theatrics that we’ve become accustomed to after games this season. After being carried onto the field by his teammates as the final seconds ticked away Saturday, he blew kisses with both of his hands to the crowd and stood with arms spread wide.
Then, making his first public comments since Nov. 9, the day after a report that he cheated academically three times while at Florida, Newton told a national television audience and rabid Auburn fans still soaking in their first SEC title since 2004 that “A wise man told me, ‘If God is with me, who can be against me?’”
The crowd roared in response, just like it did when he stood in the Tigers’ end zone with teammates and sang the song, “Lean On Me,” while swaying and clapping with them.
“Lean on me, when you're not strong, and I'll be your friend,” Newton bellowed with a grin. “I'll help you carry on, for it won't be long 'til I'm gonna need somebody to lean on.”
Later in a postgame press conference, that’s what Newton emphasized when he read a statement written in blue ink that he had studied carefully beforehand. He thanked his teammates, family, coaches and Auburn supporters.
“As I said before,” Newton said, “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
And with that, Newton read aloud that he would answer only football questions related to the game. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple when Auburn has limited the access of your father to its athletics program as it announced earlier this week.
As much as Newton and the Tigers would like the controversy to go away, it won’t. Get ready to hear plenty more about it in the 37 days between now and the BCS title game.
But the questions are valid, especially ones such as whether Newton’s father, Cecil Newton Sr., will be allowed to attend the Heisman Trophy ceremony, which Chizik declined to let Newton answer.
That means more uneasiness for SEC commissioner Mike Slive, who was sweating Saturday in the climate-controlled Georgia Dome. He spoke carefully when asked if he was worried that Auburn’s accomplishments this season could eventually be stripped away by the NCAA, whose enforcement investigation into the Newton matter is ongoing.
“We’ll see what the facts are,” Slive said. “That’s speculation. That’s a hypothetical. The facts we have today are different than what you just posed.”
And it’s all hollow talk, at least according to former Auburn coach Pat Dye, who resigned at the end of the 1992 season in the wake of a pay-for-play scandal before the Tigers later went on NCAA probation.
“There hasn’t been a question for me with off-the-field,” Dye said of Newton after the game.
If only Newton’s off-the-field questions were really that easy. It’s just too bad they can’t be answered like those about him on the field.
