Asked what he would wish for over the next 12 months, Auburn NCAA compliance director Rich McGlynn cut right to the chase:


“Hopefully, next year is not as stressful.  I hope next year is as eventful on the field.  It’s been an interesting year for sure.  I love Auburn.  I love working for Jay Jacobs.  I love our coaching staff and I love our kids.  It’s been a wild ride.  From a professional and personal level, the stress has been there.

We’re working hard.  Does that mean we’re perfect at what we do?  Absolutely not, but no one is.  But we are doing it the right way, and we’re building a program.”


McGlynn said that he also hopes the NCAA will grant Mike Blakely a waiver allowing the former Florida running back to play right away on The Plains.  The freshman Blakely signed with the Gators but never played or practiced with UF before deciding to transfer.

In the “irony can be pretty ironic sometimes” category, this one’s a peach.

Auburn announced last night that the school will unveil bronze statues of its three Heisman Trophy winners at Jordan-Hare Stadium sometime in this academic year.

Athletic director Jay Jacobs said that an artist had already begun work on statues of Pat Sullivan and Bo Jackson earlier this year.  In a letter announcing the statues, Jacobs said: “Little did we know that we would need to add a third statue so soon.”

The third statue, of course, will be a likeness of Cam Newton.

Here’s the irony part: As you know, many Auburn fans and Alabama fans don’t exactly get along.  If one school does something, the rival fanbase often mocks that thing.  Alabama’s new statue of Nick Saban is just such a thing.  And Auburn fans have mocked it.  One even took to The Birmingham News’ sound-off comment page to suggest that the folks in Tuscaloosa had made a false idol.

So what’s that guy going to say now?

The lesson: Be careful how you make fun of your rivals.

AuburnSports.com — the Rivals site covering the Tigers — sat down this week for an interview with AU athletic director Jay Jacobs.  Naturally, recent rumors and allegations of rules violations came up. 

For the full interview you’ll need a subscription.  But by way of a tease, we found a couple of Jacobs’ responses to be interesting.

When asked if there is anything Auburn can do to cool all the NCAA talk, Jacobs said: “With all the different rumors and reports swirling around, we don’t have the time or energy to combat all of those… and we’re not going to.  We are going to keep doing things the right way, keep moving this program forward and not take the time or energy to combat all of the negative rumors.”

Sounds like he’s not a fan of energy vampires.

Asked specifically about AU’s compliance department, Jacobs gushed: “We have the best compliance department in the SEC.  Those guys are on top of everything and examine all details and work hand in hand with our coaches.  I couldn’t bee more proud of how they represent Auburn.  we are going to be vigilant and diligent in our compliance.”

While folks across the SEC will no doubt roll their eyes at those comments, it’s important to remember that despite all of the rumors, accusations, allegations and chatter, Auburn has not been charged by the NCAA with a single rules violation regarding Cam Newton or the HBO Four.  Not one.

On Monday, Jay Jacobs said that Cecil Newton and Auburn had agreed that he had best not attend the BCS Championship Game out of respect for his son.

But after the game, a photo captured Cam Newton hugging his father.  The embrace came after the younger Newton had scanned the crowd for his dad.

Three Auburn fans have already emailed to say that they saw Cecil watching the game at a nearby hotel.  Interesting that I’ve gotten three emails and one posted comment on this topic, but none of those folks chose to mention the name of the hotel where they spotted Cecil.  Nor do they explain how the man got from the hotel to the stadium (and into the stadium) so quickly after the game’s climax.

Whether Tiger fans support Cecil/Cam or not — and the vast majority do — the elder Newton has once again left Auburn’s PR wing in a lurch.  On a day when Auburn staffers should have been answering questions about victory parades and interviews, instead they were having to answer questions about Cecil.

And according to AU staffers, the school didn’t provide Newton with a ticket to the game.  And athletic department officials did not expect him to attend the game.

The NCAA told Auburn that it should allow only limited access to Cecil after learning that he had asked Mississippi State representatives for cash.  Sneaking into a game to watch his son win a BCS title shouldn’t be considered a violation of that “suggestion” as far as MrSEC.com is concerned.

But this incident once again proves that the elder Newton is a loose cannon and that AU officials — if you believe them — really have no idea what he’s going to do from one minute to the next.

If his son were a backup kicker, Tiger fans would want this guy run out of town on the proverbial rail.  But since his son is the best player in the land, some instead offer up more defense of Cecil.  Even though he put Auburn officials in a bad light.  Again.

The Auburn Tigers arrived in Arizona yesterday for next week’s BCS Championship Game.  All the Tiger players made the trip. 

So does that mean all Tiger players are academically eligible to play?  Gene Chizik still won’t say.  But athletic director Jay Jacobs did talk to Phillip Marshall of Auburn.247sports.com. 


“After Auburn’s football team an official party arrived at the Phoenix Skyharbor Airport on Monday, Tiger coach Gene Chizik said everybody made the trip.  Asked if that meant everyone was eligible, he repeated everybody made the trip.

I asked athletic director Jay Jacobs if a player had to be eligible to be on the trip.  He said a player could not get on the bus (from Auburn to Atlanta) unless he was eligible.

Add it up and it certainly appears that no players of significance will be academically ineligible when Auburn plays Oregon in the BCS Championship Game.”


Auburn’s team took buses from Auburn to Atlanta’s airport.

So it sounds like the rumors of multiple players being academically ineligible were either incorrect or the school won an appeal or two with the NCAA.  Either way that’s good news for Auburn fans.  Though I’m guessing some of them would still like to hear the cloak-and-dagger coach actually say, “Yeah, everyone’s eligible.”

Asked if he would work hard to keep Gus Malzahn at Auburn, athletic director Jay Jacobs said: “No doubt about it, no doubt about it, no doubt it.  That’s what we’re going to do.”

Then he better get out the checkbook.  If reports are correct that Vanderbilt is offering anything close to $3 million a year then it’s hard to imagine Jacobs being able to keep his coordinator.  And that’s to say nothing of other possible offers that might come Malzahn’s way.

Jacobs understands that.  “It gets to the point when you have an opportunity to become a head coach at a BCS college, it’s a tough thing not to do sometimes.  We’ll certainly do what we feel like is right, and certainly for what Gus has done for this program.”

Auburn fans should hope — if multiple schools come after their offensive guru — that he feels:


1.  He’s not ready to be a head coach yet

or

2.  He wants to prove that his offense will thrive in the SEC, at Auburn even without Cam Newton


If he doesn’t have those feelings, then it’s going to be tough to keep Malzahn at Auburn.

Asked this afternoon if Cam Newton would play for Auburn tomorrow, athletic director Jay Jacobs said: “We’re not commenting.”

Other reports have said that Newton is still on track to play tomorrow, but Charles Robinson of Yahoo! Sports tweeted this afternoon that the NCAA has now informed Auburn of a potential eligibility issue with regards to the Tigers’ star quarterback.

Stay tuned…

Amidst a growing smear campaign against his school’s quarterback, Auburn athletic director Jay Jacobs has decided to speak out in defense of Cameron Newton.

In a statement released today Jacobs said:


“In the past 24 hours, a lot of allegations have surfaced that date back two years ago and further.  These allegations and rumors about Cam Newton are unfortunate and sad because they seem intent on tearing down the reputation of a young man who has done everything we’ve asked him to do.

“Cam has been and continues to be completely honest with us.  Cam is, by all accounts, a great kid.  Any discussion of academic records is a clear violation of federal privacy laws.  We will not go down that path or stoop to that level as others have apparently done.  We will, however, emphatically say that Cam is eligible to play football at Auburn University both academically and athletically.  I am proud of this young man and the progress has has made to be a better football player and a better man.  We are truly blessed that Cam is a part of the Auburn family, and we support him 100 percent.”


A tip of the hat to Jacobs.  There is a risk in backing someone so publicly as it’s impossible to know what shoe might drop next.  So the fact that Jacobs chose to defend AU’s quarterback so forcefully should tell everyone that the folks in Auburn’s administration feel pretty darn good about the character of Newton today.