Mississippi State has issued this statement regarding Cameron Newton:
STATEMENT FROM THE MISSISSIPPI STATE ATHLETIC DEPARTMENT:
Mississippi State University acknowledges that it contacted the Southeastern Conference office in January of 2010 regarding an issue relating to its recruitment of Cam Newton.
Shortly after the initial call, the SEC office requested specific information to include interviews with involved staff from MSU.
Due to MSU dealing with ongoing and time-consuming eligibility issues involving non-football matters in the winter and spring of 2010, the specific SEC request went unfulfilled. Some additional information was provided to the SEC during July of 2010. Once the NCAA enforcement staff became involved, Mississippi State University cooperated fully with its investigation. MSU is confident the SEC office has managed this process consistent with its established procedures and the university is committed to the conference's ongoing efforts to ensure compliance with SEC and NCAA rules.
This statement gives us a timeline and a reason why there was a gap between the initial report in January and the NCAA's involvement over the summer.
Two things to consider:
- The "ongoing and time-consuming eligibility issues involving non-football matters" are almost certainly entirely surrounding Renardo Sidney. Given that MSU has only one compliance director, it's unlikely MSU could have run two investigations at once.
- MSU didn't turn Newton into the SEC until January, after he signed with Auburn. And why would Dan Mullen keep recruiting Newton if he knew there were issues? Well, he's advised by the same compliance department that green lighted the recruitment of Sidney.
The NCAA declined to comment on MSU's statement.