Cam Newton's Going to Play? Cam Newton's Going to Play!

This is what it's all about, folks!

Random thoughts on the NCAA ruling:

1. Though you wouldn't know it from the reaction of Auburn fans (or at least the Auburn fans with whom I work), yesterday was not a good day for Auburn. The NCAA has concluded that Cecil Newton attempted to sell his son to Mississippi State. That raises two possibilities for what actually happened in Newton's recruitment: (a) Cecil Newton was bluffing when he told Mississippi State that he had an offer on the table; or (b) the Reverend did have an offer from Auburn. Likewise, now that it's been established that Cecil Newton was looking for a payday when Cam was recruited and Cam ended up at Auburn after Cecil made the decision himself, we have a strong implication that Auburn paid for Newton. An implication isn't enough to declare a player ineligible, so the NCAA ruling is defensible, but if one were taking odds on whether Auburn paid for Newton, the favorite would be "they're cheatin' again."

2. The other negative for Auburn is that the stakes are just going to keep rising for them. If Newton would have been declared ineligible before the Georgia game, then it's quite possible (likely?) that Auburn would have lost to Georgia and Alabama and therefore would not have won their division. Now, Auburn has won the West and is favored to win the SEC Championship Game. If Auburn wins this weekend and it turns out that they paid for Newton, then they will have bought an SEC Championship. And then, you have the prospect that Auburn beats South Carolina and wins in Glendale. That would be the equivalent of the Tigers pushing all of their chips into the middle of the table. If that happens and then the NCAA (or, more likely, the FBI/IRS and then the NCAA) establish that Auburn boosters paid for Newton, then the blowback would be immense. At that stage, Auburn would have embarrassed the sport of college football by winning the national title on the back of a quarterback who was bought and paid for. As a neutral college football fan, the conclusion is that we would all feel a little more at ease if South Carolina won on Saturday.

3. All that said, the NCAA's ruling yesterday didn't offend my sense of propriety because I generally assume that players and their families will accept money if it's offered. That seems implicit to me in college football recruiting (with obvious exceptions). The bulwark against rampant cheating is not recruits and their families; it's the coaches and athletic departments that place their reputations on the line by offering money. The prospect of NCAA sanctions is the deterrent against schools paying for recruits. The prospect of becoming Todd Bozeman is the deterrent for a coach. All of the hyperventilating about families now having the ability to have their hands out seems excessive to me. If programs don't pay money for players, then it doesn't matter. Also, there is concern about a slippery slope with families asking for money all the time, but think about the alternative if the NCAA rules that asking for an improper benefit renders an athlete ineligible. Recruits and players are probably asking for small benefits all the time: tickets, meals, apparel, travel, etc. Most of the requests are probably entirely innocent. Do we really want every such request to put eligibility at risk?

4. The NCAA's ruling also makes sense in another respect: there are no damages. If this were a civil action, then Auburn's defense would be "no harm, no foul." Yes, Cecil Newton solicited money, but in the end, there is no evidence that money changed hands and that is the focus of these particular NCAA rules.

The Auburn Defense is Neither Auburn, nor a Defense. Discuss.

It’s been a fun few weeks reading stories about Alabama’s underground economy,* but Camkampf has obscured a more pressing issue for those of us who love SEC football: is the Auburn defense good enough to win a national title?  We know that the offense is outstanding.  We know that Nick Fairley is both inappropriately named and also an immovable object in the center of the defensive line.  We know that the Auburn secondary is suspect and facing a senior quarterback, Julio Jones, and a road game against the defending national champions.  So where does this defense stack up?  As ESPN’s Eliminator points out, the defense makes Auburn dissimilar from recent national champions. ($)  But I don’t like their numbers, so I thought that I would use a few of my own.

* – The story of the various scandals involving Auburn’s and Alabama’s NCAA violations would make for a great fourth section in Eric Schlosser’s Reefer Madness.  An economist would look at college football in Alabama and would not be surprised in the slightest that the state’s two major programs have both been hit by major sanctions on numerous occasions.  You have a state where there are no pro sports teams, so all of the sports interest is funneled into college football.  Evolution has given the state a bipolar set-up in which there are two major programs: a historically successful alpha program and a not-quite-as-good, but striving oh so hard second program.  The state is relatively poor and looked down upon by the rest of the country, so its college football teams become a matter of great importance and pride.  Put on top of that cauldron the ineffective lid of the NCAA’s weak, subpoena-free enforcement apparatus that isn’t a major deterrent to paying players and you have a situation in which it would be surprising if Auburn and Alabama were not forking out $200,000 for quarterbacks.  As my copy of Fab Five looks down from my bookshelf and snickers, I’m not saying that Auburn and Alabama are the only schools that flout NCAA rules.  I’m just saying that the state’s set-up makes that phenomenon likelier than in other places.

Last summer, I took a look at the yards per play numbers for national champions over the course of the decade.  Here’s what that list looked like in terms of yards per play allowed (with 2009 Alabama added in):

2009 Alabama – 4.05
2008 Florida - 4.46
2007 LSU - 4.42
2006 Florida - 4.32
2005 Texas - 4.39
2004 USC - 4.27
2003 USC - 4.41
2003 LSU - 4.02
2002 Ohio State - 4.66
2001 Miami - 3.93
2000 Oklahoma - 4.14

And here is yards gained per play:

2009 Alabama – 5.96
2008 Florida - 7.13
2007 LSU - 5.84
2006 Florida - 6.34
2005 Texas - 7.07
2004 USC - 6.33
2003 USC - 6.49
2003 LSU - 5.89
2002 Ohio State - 5.61
2001 Miami - 6.57
2000 Oklahoma - 5.99

And here’s what those ten national champions looked like in terms of yards per play margin:

2009 Alabama – 1.91
2008 Florida - 2.67
2007 LSU - 1.42
2006 Florida - 2.02
2005 Texas - 2.68
2004 USC - 2.06
2003 USC - 2.08
2003 LSU - 1.87
2002 Ohio State - 0.95
2001 Miami - 2.64
2000 Oklahoma - 1.85

Auburn is currently gaining 7.6 yards per play and allowing 5.18,  giving the Tigers a yards per play margin of 2.42.  So there are two conclusions to be made here.  First, Auburn’s defense is weaker than any of the ten teams to win national titles in the aughts.  The Tigers allow a half a yard per play more than any of those ten teams.  On the other hand, Auburn’s offense is better than any of those ten teams.  Only 2005 Texas and 2008 Florida gained over seven yards per play; Auburn is almost a full half-yard per play better than either of them.  (Note for Gary Danielson: what do 2005 Texas and 2008 Florida have in common?  You know, in terms of the offenses that they ran?  Take a wild guess.)  So while Auburn’s defense doesn’t look like a national championship defense, the team as a whole would fit in with 2008 Florida, 2005 Texas, and 2001 Miami in the cluster of the best national champions of the decade.  (Caveat: Auburn hasn’t yet played the toughest game on its schedule.  After the Iron Bowl, the SEC Championship Game, and a bowl game, one would expect the Tigers’ number to be lower.)  Despite playing several close games against inferior opponents, 2010 Auburn does not have the statistical profile of the insanely fortunate 2002 Ohio State team.

So here’s the takeaway (and one that I was not thinking when fingers hit keyboard this morning): the focus on Auburn’s defense is a little myopic.  A defense doesn’t exist in isolation; it’s part of a team.  If the team is producing great numbers overall, then do the individual components really matter that much?  This is the problem with ESPN’s Eliminator analysis.  It penalizes Auburn for not meeting certain defensive benchmarks, but it doesn’t reward the Tigers for blowing past the offensive benchmarks like Usain Bolt at middle school field day.  It’s possible that a team could be so extreme in terms of offensive strength and defensive weakness that it could have a good yardage margin, but would still be unlikely to win a national title.  A team that gained 13 yards per play and allowed ten would be better in yardage margin than any of the last ten national champions, but we would expect a team like that to lose a game or two 63-59.  It doesn’t seem to me that Auburn is quite that extreme.

By the way, this post has done nothing to push me off the position that Gus Malzahn is more valuable than Gene Chizik.  If Auburn were faced with a choice between the two, it should keep the former.  It would be insane for the Tigers to fire a coach who just won the SEC, but there is a precedent for that from their friends in Tuscaloosa. 

Clay Travis on Camkampf

I've enjoyed Clay Travis's writing on the Cam Newton story, but yesterday's column rubbed me the wrong way in a couple respects. Here's the first:

6. Cam Newton is, however, neither guilty nor innocent.

Those are terms reserved for criminal trial defendants. Right now Newton is something entirely different -- either eligible or ineligible. So please stop with all the Duke lacrosse e-mails about how people are innocent until proven guilty. These situations have nothing in common. Zero. The Duke lacrosse players faced years behind bars and were charged with a serious crime. Right now, all Newton faces is ineligibility in football. Let's be clear about this, there is nothing illegal, yet, about these Newton accusations.

What's more, saying that we need to reserve judgment until the "facts" are in -- as SEC commissioner Mike Slive did on Friday -- isn't fair because college football judgment is based upon our perceptions of the relative strength of teams. College football isn't a sport that's judged on "facts," it's a sport judged on our perceptions. Would Slive say it's unfair, for example, not to elect someone to the Senate if they faced a serious ethical charge during the campaign? Probably not, right, you should allow that to influence your opinion.

If my perception is, rightly, that Newton and Auburn aren't going to be able to keep any titles or awards they win this season, why is it then inappropriate to react based upon that perception? After all, every bit of the college football season is based upon perception. There's no playoff to determine which are the best teams, we have to come to a conclusion based upon what we see.

If anything, not reacting to these allegations is the irresponsible thing to do. That requires us to ignore what we clearly see before us -- that Newton and Auburn are in a world of trouble. Why is pretending that nothing is the matter better than considering that something is the matter?

It isn't.

You have to make a judgment in this situation. Either you believe Newton and Auburn are completely in the clear and you can support their title run or you believe that they aren't and you can't. Failing to make any decision at all isn't noble, it's the height of stupidity.

I was with Travis on the guilt and innocence point, but he goes off the rails with the perception point. Yes, college football has a two-team playoff and therefore perception matters, but it is perception of the teams' merits that matters. There is no Sagarin ranking for elgibility questions. There is no yards per game stat that accounts for Cecil Newton. If Auburn, the SEC, and the NCAA say that Cam Newton is eligible, then voters have an obligation to vote accordingly. There have been plenty of NCAA scandals that have not resulted in the forfeiture of games, so it is incumbent on us to see how this process plays out. It is possible that the NCAA will determine that Cecil Newton did ask for money from Mississippi State, but it won't force Auburn to forfeit its wins because Auburn neither knew, nor should have known about the issue. (I'm honestly interested in the answer to that question. Is Auburn strictly liable for its players' eligibility issues? Or does there have to be some level of negligence on Auburn's part?) In short, Travis is conflating relevant perceptions - how good is Auburn relative to other teams in college football - with irrelevant perceptions - how will the Newton story play out - in an effort to justify ... not voting for Auburn in the top 25?

And then this argument is really naive for someone with a legal degree:

11. Do you blame the Newton family if allegations of soliciting cash prove true?

Here's the rub: no, I really don't. As I've written and said a thousand times, my position is simple. If you're 18 years old, you should be able to make a living pursuing your chosen talent. The only people who can't in the entire United States are college football and basketball players. For some reason, we require that they serve an apprenticeship at college that makes universities a ton of money.

Again, we don't demand that Taylor Swift sing in the Vanderbilt chorus. Nope, we let her go pro.

This claim would be news to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. There is a collective bargaining exemption to the Sherman Antitrust Act. A union is free to bargain with an employer to set guidelines for entry into the workforce. The NFLPA has negotiated with the NFL to require that football players be three years out of high school before playing in the NFL. The NFLPA can do this in the same way that IBEW can create apprenticeship requirements for electricians. Stepping out of the union context, when I was 18, I wasn't permitted to start representing clients and trying cases. I had to go to college, then law school, then pass a bar exam. That's called a licensing requirement and I'm pretty sure that it's constitutional. I'd prefer a society that does not allow any 18-year old to perform surgery. So no, Clay, football players aren't the only people who can't do whatever they want when they're 18.

The Sunday Splurge is Happy to Have a Heel

For much of the season, it felt like something was missing. Without most of the major powers in contention for the national title, I had a hard time working up the energy to dislike a team in the Glendale mix. Outside of Seattle, how does someone work himself into a lather about Donald Duck? Or about TCU and Boise State? We've lacked a really hateable program in the BCS discussion. We've also lacked a star player who gets so force-fed to us by the media that we all rebel and root against that player. Then, Saturday provided us with what the season has been missing: a heel. Say hello to this season's Snidely Whiplash: the Auburn Tigers. I'm not sure if it was: (1) the fawning coverage of Cam Newton having to go through the trauma of multiple credible reports suggesting that Auburn paid handsomely for his services; (2) Nick Fairley's attempts to mimic Darnell Dockett (what is it with outwardly religious coaches who preside over teams that seek to maim opposing quarterbacks to the echo of the whistle and beyond? And where is Chaz Ramsey when Auburn opponents really want him around?); or (3) Auburn fans showing their (cl)ass by booing an injured Georgia player, but at some point Saturday, I decided that a fifth straight SEC national championship is not worth the feelings of nausea that I would have rooting for this Auburn team.

Some of my frustration from the game was caused by the realization that Auburn is a Pac Ten team in disguise. SEC fans have routinely mocked teams from the Left Coast and, more recently, the Big XII for being offense-heavy units that are not truly great because they can't stop their opponents. Does that remind you of any team you saw on Saturday? Auburn's defense isn't exactly '98 UCLA, but if an opponent can block their front four, there are options aplenty going on in the secondary. Mike Bobo drove me crazy on Saturday because he didn't recognize that Georgia needed to be scoring touchdowns on every possession and the surest way to do so would be to keep throwing the ball to A.J. Green until Auburn showed that they could stop him by shifting their secondary. Green had a monster first half and then Georgia seemed to forget that they had the best NFL prospect on the field. The third down screen pass at 35-28 was an especially egregious example. If Auburn can't stop your downfield passing game generally and A.J. Green specifically, then why would you ever go away from it? If Steve Spurrier has something working, he'll call it ten times in a row until the opponent stops it. To use an example from another sport, Coach K is the same way. Bobo was either too cute or too committed to balance to realize that he had one major advantage and that he should just keep using that advantage. The Senator concurs:

But then there are the times when Sharp Bobo defers to Dogmatic Bobo, and we saw that yesterday when the Dawgs got the ball back in the second quarter leading 21-14. That’s the Bobo who reminds himself about things like time of possession, balance and number of plays run and forces his offense into an ideological straightjacket, because there’s a book on what an offensive coordinator is supposed to do to be successful and it’s important not to stray from those principles.

The thing is, Auburn’s defense has its flaws, too. The single worst unit I saw on the field yesterday was the Tigers’ secondary. As Danielson noted, they literally couldn’t cover A.J. There were several pass plays during which you could see on replay that Georgia had multiple receivers running open. And Murray was getting decent protection for the most part. The strategy there should have been to stick with what was working in the first quarter (at one point, Murray’s average yards per completion was an eye-popping 21.3) and damn the time of possession and number of plays stats. But that’s not what Bobo elected to do, and Georgia’s scoring pace slowed considerably from that point forward through the rest of the game.

I’ve always believed that the first rule of being a good offensive coordinator is to take what the defense gives you. In his heart, I think Bobo believes that as well. The difference is that he doesn’t trust his judgment enough to stick with it for an entire game. That’s what separates him from a coordinator like Malzahn. In the end, I think it’s the biggest (although not the only) reason for yesterday’s loss. And the question for Mark Richt is whether he can get Sharp Bobo to convince Dogmatic Bobo to take a hike.

The Malzahn comparison is dead on. Auburn didn't throw a single pass in the third quarter. Why? Because their basic running plays were working and there was no reason to deviate. Dan Mullen did the same thing against Georgia this year. To use a counter example, in the 2006 Rose Bowl, USC went from 3-3 at the half with Michigan to 32-10 ahead by abandoning the running game and throwing 29 straight passes. There's no need for balance when one aspect of your offense is working beautifully. Bobo needs to learn that lesson. I suspect that he's too traditional and would be offended by the notion of throwing 29 straight times, but that was the way that Georgia was going to avoid losing its sixth game of the year.

Speaking of Malzahn and Mullen, I kept waiting for Gary Danielson to acknowledge that his never-ending claim that the Spread is dying might be a tad weak in light of the fact that Auburn has overcome a mediocre defense to go 11-0 on the basis of an unstoppable Spread attack. Crickets.

A few other thoughts from the weekend:

• I love the way some members of the media uses the term "style points" with such disdain when describing TCU's close call against San Diego State. Leaving aside the fact that "style points," a.k.a. scores, are statistically significant, how exactly does one separate unbeaten teams without them? Does anyone really want to parse out TCU's and Boise State's schedules?
• Another benefit to Auburn losing one of their last two games: a non-AQ conference team will almost certainly make the national title game, which will puncture the air out of Mark Shurtleff's balloon.
• Just to show that he does have something in common with Bo Schembechler, Rich Rodriguez mimicked Bo's decision to kick twice to Rocket Ismail by leaving his right tackles one-on-one with Ryan Kerrigan. Kerrigan repeatedly blew up Michigan's passing plays while Michigan's right guard Patrick Omameh looked for someone to block.

Barnhart: Mike Slive Should Take a Page from Carmelo Anthony's Book

I heartily co-sign on the Senator's post suggesting that Mike Slive needs to get SEC coaches together and deliver a Stop Snitchin' rant. What a classic good ol' boy response from Barnhart. Let's not worry about the fact that #2 ranked Auburn may have paid $200K for its star quarterback. (If I were Mississippi State's coaches, I'd be livid. There's a very good chance that Mississippi State would be unbeaten if not for the alleged payments by Auburn.) Let's not worry about the fact that the SEC is extremely successful on the field, but that success can be tarnished if the media narrative changes to "they're cheating again!" Let's instead worry about the fact that coaches are running their mouths to the press. (And it's interesting that Barnhart assumes that a coach is the the source for the allegation that Newton was accused of cheating at Florida. There are any one of a number of potential Deep Throats in Gainesville who could have leaked the information, most of whom would not be in the room when Slive reads the riot act that Barnhart recommends.)

Here's a better idea: Mike Slive convenes a meeting of SEC program decision-makers and tells them that paying players is a bad idea.

My Top 25 Will Need More than a Scholarship

Braves & Birds Ballot - Week 11

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Oregon Ducks	--
2	Auburn Tigers	--
3	TCU Horned Frogs	--
4	Boise St. Broncos	1
5	Stanford Cardinal	1
6	LSU Tigers	10
7	Nebraska Cornhuskers	--
8	Arkansas Razorbacks	2
9	Alabama Crimson Tide	-5
10	Oklahoma St. Cowboys	11
11	Wisconsin Badgers	1
12	Ohio St. Buckeyes	2
13	Arizona Wildcats	-4
14	Missouri Tigers	-3
15	Oklahoma Sooners	-2
16	Iowa Hawkeyes	-1
17	Florida Gators	--
18	Nevada Wolf Pack	--
19	Michigan St. Spartans	--
20	Virginia Tech Hokies	--
21	Utah Utes	-13
22	Mississippi St. Bulldogs	1
23	Baylor Bears	-5
24	South Carolina Gamecocks	-7
25	Texas A&M Aggies	--
Dropouts: N.C. State Wolfpack, Florida St. Seminoles, Illinois Fighting Illini

SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings »

Random Thoughts on the Ballot

To be totally consistent with my love for computer rankings that take margin-of-victory into account, I should have TCU over Auburn. In the end, I can't drop an unbeaten SEC team out of the top two, even if the Tigers did need late heroics to beat Clemson and Kentucky. I suspect that the issue will be mooted when Auburn loses one of their final three games, at which point we'll have to split hairs between TCU and Boise State.

Upon reflection, I don't have enough Pac Ten teams on my ballot. The Pac Ten has been good this year, so I ought to have more than three teams on my ballot. USC would make sense, but on the other hand, they escaped from a game with Arizona State by the skin of their teeth, so is that really much of an oversight? Oregon State is good, but they are 4-4. Cal can't win a game on the road and nearly gave Washington State their first conference win in a dog's year. At least one of those teams should have gone in toward the end so I could stop alternating SEC and Big XII teams.

I probably put Florida too high. And I feel dirty for ranking a Mike Sherman team. This is surely going to end badly for Texas. By the way, what deal with the devil did people in Texas make to get the Rangers to the World Series?

Brian Cook pointed out last week that I had Arkansas three spots higher than anyone else. We'll see if that remains true after the Hogs looked great in Columbia. Sagarin and SRS both slot Arkansas at #13, which is lower than where I have them on the ballot. Consider this vote an endorsement of their good yards-per-play margin.