There’s a great site out there called Stiff Arm Trophy, and they’re projecting that Auburn quarterback Cam Newton will win the Heisman Trophy, which will be handed out for the 76th time this weekend. Newton was arguably the most outstanding player in college football this season, propelling the Tigers to their first SEC title since their BCS snub in 2004.

This morning, on the strength of an additional 22 ballots, we’re revising that estimate downward slightly. At this time, our projection shows Newton earning just over 2300 points, or nearly 84% of a unanimous vote. To be sure, that’s still a big damn deal – but it would drop him to fourth place all-time, behind Ricky Williams (85.2%). We now have a hard count of 13 Heisman voters who excluded Newton from their ballots entirely (plus 8 that ranked him #2 or #3.)

–Stiff Arm Trophy.

Cam’s father, Cecil Newton, will not be attending the award ceremony tomorrow night (perhaps to field contract offers from the UFL. Without his son’s knowledge, of course).

I have a cheesesteak bet with Dan Levy that Cam gets less than 85 percent of the total vote; obviously I was expecting the tidal crusade for amateurism to wash over a few more voters. And apparently it’s just called a “cheesesteak” and not a “cheesesteak sandwich.” Whatever. I’m just afraid that if I don’t specify, someone will bring out a cheesesteak pie. I’m hoping for that, actually.

Auburn quarterback Cam Newton is the beneficiary of a bizarre NCAA ruling that would allow him to be eligible to play this Saturday in the SEC Championship game against South Carolina. The governing body of intercollegiate athletics said, in a nutshell, that Cam is still in the clear since he apparently didn’t know that his father was shopping him to other schools for cash, which seems contrary to the ruling that put Southern Cal’s football team on probation earlier this year.

[Southern Cal athletic director Pat] Haden, who succeeded Mike Garrett in August, said the Newton ruling is at odds with how USC is attempting to educate athletes and their parents regarding NCAA rules.

“I was always told the parent is the child,” Haden said. “That’s what we’ve been telling our kids. If the parent does something inappropriate the child suffers the consequences.”

USC is scheduled to appear before the NCAA’s Infractions Appeals Committee next month. Haden said school attorneys would probably review the Newton case. “Intuitively, it seems appropriate that we would discuss it,” he said.

–FOX Sports West/LA Times.

The differences between Cecil Newton and Reggie Bush’s ordeal at Southern Cal aren’t all that obvious: the message the NCAA seems to be sending is, “We have no intention of pulling a guy off the field while he’s still active, and his team is playing well.” So they’ll let Auburn take a shot at a national title that would eventually be forfeited anyway. Which is funny, because there are lots of people out there that think college players should get a more respectable wage for their efforts. This tells me that the NCAA feels the same way.

The Heisman race in college football is really just a Miss America pageant; its annual recipient doesn’t represent the best in the game so much as a guy that managed to keep his nose clean while playing for one of the best teams in the country. And so I’m usually given pause whenever a guy wants to deem someone “unworthy” of the prize, which is what one columnist is already doing with Auburn quarterback and Awesome Football Player (TM) Cam Newton.

So listen closely, Heisman voters: Do not vote for Newton. That’s surely a heartbreaking message for most of you, who basically had already given him the award for college football’s most outstanding player.

But remember, just less than two months ago, disgraced New Orleans Saints running back Reggie Bush in an unprecedented move returned the Heisman Trophy that he won in 2005. That was after the NCAA determined he was ineligible that season at USC for having accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in benefits from two agents.

When Bush won the award, there were no signs of potential impropriety. Yet with Newton, a junior, now there are. Yes, they are allegations, but the kind that aren’t worth risking the return of another Heisman Trophy. –Thayer Evans/FOX Sports.

So basically Evans is saying not to vote for this guy because that other guy turned out to be taking money ergo this guy is obviously dirty because allegations always turn out to be true, even when they come from OTHER SKEWLS IN THE AYESS-EEE-SEEE! I hope whoever wrote this gets cavity-searched the next time he’s in an airport. You know, just to be on the safe side. More charges against Cam Newton.

*Allegedly

Former Mississippi State player and servant to the Queen of England, John Bond, has made allegations that Auburn University quarterback and Heisman Trophy frontrunner Cam “Isaac” Newton expressed interest in transferring to MSU from junior college last year, but Newton was expecting $180,000 for his services, according to another former MSU football player. That may seem excessive, seeing as he only wanted a laptop while playing for the University of Florida, but hey, a guy’s gotta make some cheddar, right?

ESPN.com reported that the former player who was soliciting money on behalf of Newton was Kenny Rogers, who apparently also has some bad blood with the NCAA and the NFL Players Association. Rogers allegedly acts as an agent for college players like Newton, who was looking to transfer back to a D-I school after spending time at a junior college in the wake of his ejection from Florida. Through his Elite Football Preparation agency, Rogers reportedly tried to sell Newton as a collegiate free agent to various schools, with some willing to pay as much as $200,000. However, MSU could only shake $180,000 out of the couch cushions, and Cam was allegedly cool with that because he was close with MSU coach Dan Mullen from their brief time together at Florida. He’s the quarterback hooker with the heart of gold.

Do we expect you to die, Mr. Bond? No, we expect you to talk:

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There haven’t been many more head-scratching hirings in college football than that of Gene Chizik, and it wasn’t just because of the name, which is just one letter short of resembling a horrible draw in “Scrabble.” Chizik’s hiring at Auburn over fellow candidate Turner Gill–now the head football coach at Kansas–drew cries of racism. Oh, I should probably mention that Turner Gill was black. And, as far as I know, still is.

Anyway, while Gill is struggggling in his first season at Kansas, Chizik’s Auburn Tigers just came out of the BCS Weekly Sausage Factory** with the No. 1 ranking, and naturally, Coach is pissed about it.

[Chizik] knows he can’t control what they talk about when they’re outside the athletic department walls: “I can only control how we proceed in this building. We just had a team meeting and we talked about being very grounded and understanding that every week is a another new week and another opportunity. It probably sounds to them the same old sad song every Sunday. But that’s what we do. Hopefully they’ll continue to prepare — I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t — like they have every other week.”

Hey, don’t take this as “I told you so,” because I never told anybody so, and if I had, I wouldn’t have remembered. Chizik went to a better program in a more competitive conference. Hell, Kansas won the Orange Bowl three years ago and half their student body doesn’t even know they have a team.

**The BCS is a college football postseason system. It does not produce sausage or any other meats or foodstuffs for human consumption.

Nothing says “I’m a man’s man” like getting a tattoo, and as we all know, the most manly spot for a man’s tattoo is the lower back. He must have really hated his dignity.

“Jimmy, I know that lower-back tattoos are definitely a no-no, especially when it is on a dude! However, the Auburn tattoo has a funny story. That is a buddy of mine here in Cincinnati. He is a true Auburn alum. He took that tattoo as a dare in college and received decent compensation. I went to the West Virginia-Auburn football game with him last year (I am a WVU alum) and you would be surprised how many comments he gets on that thing! I thought in his honor I would at least mention the bet because 1) it is true and 2) it might help gain some of his self-respect back.” So I wrote back to T.J. to find out the compensation. He said, “The tattoo was paid for and he got $200 cash. Not a bad month of partying in college. You have to do a poll to see if people would take that bet to get a tramp stamp of their favorite college football team for $200 and the cost. As a very passionate Mountaineers fan, I would have a tough time making a decision on that.” –Sports Illustrated

$200 will get you somewhere between 10-15 cases of Natty Light these days, but he definitely needs to use some of that money for backne medication. Is $200 worth the looking like you’re engaged to your cousin for the rest of your life? The Abercrombie underwear isn’t helping, either. I see one of their stores at every mall I go to, but have never had the displeasure of going inside. You know when you’re about to pass one because you can smell the AXE from three stores down.