Danny Sheridan Does Not Identify Cam Newton Bag Man

by Year2 on Aug 17, 2025 3:21 PM EDT in SEC Football

USA Today analyst Danny Sheridan has not come forward with a name for the Cam Newton bag man. Sheridan originally reported at SEC Media Days that the NCAA had the name, but he said he didn't know it at the time. He said last week that he had the name, but he is not going to reveal it because he believes it would cause someone at the NCAA to lose their job. He was clear that not revealing the name had nothing to do with whether it's true, but rather it's all about protecting his source.

Sheridan's lawyer Vince Kilborn explained that Sheridan would have to out his source at the NCAA in case there was a libel lawsuit, and he is quite sure a lawsuit would be coming. He therefore advised Sheridan not to reveal the name. Sheridan also says he know the location of where the deal went down, but he again refused to reveal it to prevent the press from descending on that location.

Sheridan reiterated his statement that there is a witness to the deal that brought Cam Newton to Auburn, and it's up to that witness to come forward to make the case for the NCAA. He said he never promised to say the name (which is technically true), and he and his lawyer got very evasive when asked if Sheridan knew about the status of the NCAA investigation into Auburn.

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Most epic troll-ing in history?

Pretty spectacular job by Sheridan and Finebaum.

Writer (and a handsome one at that),
And the Valley Shook

by Billy Gomila on Aug 17, 2025 3:29 PM EDT reply actions

If there's no hookers or luxury suite stripper poles

then I don’t wanna play this game anymore. I am now spoiled.

by Mark Mandingo on Aug 17, 2025 3:42 PM EDT reply actions

yeah true man, this scandal lame

ToB | @ToB

by Alabama ManDance on Aug 17, 2025 4:15 PM EDT up reply actions

ok...

So there’s the un-named bag man and an alleged witness to the deal. The bag man remains a mystery because there’s no one (i.e the witness) to corroborate the story? Somehow they know there’s a witness because…there’s a witness to the witness? Now we just wait for the witness to step up. Is that about right?

by AuburnMisfit on Aug 17, 2025 4:13 PM EDT reply actions

I like this logic...

How does the NCAA know that there is a witness? Obviously that person must have told them, “I am a witness to the money exchange”. Therefore, the witness has already come forward…And since this mess doesn’t have to go to court to rule Cam ineligible that witness doesn’t have to “come forward publicly” for the NCAA to make their ruling.

I think we’ve just proven that this isn’t true. At all.

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by LSU Jonno on Aug 18, 2025 9:28 AM EDT up reply actions

Not quite

Imagine that someone who was not a witness told the NCAA, “Hey, Person X was the bag man and Person Y witnessed it.” If the NCAA trusts the guy who told them that, then we can have the situation that Sheridan described.

Sheridan has himself well covered. If the NCAA has no name, well then his source was wrong. If the name he has isn’t the one the NCAA has, then his source was wrong again. If the name he has is not really the bag man, then the NCAA was wrong. No matter what, Sheridan can’t be wrong here. The only way Sheridan can be lying is if he has no source in the first place, but media dinosaurs like him tend to have relationships everywhere. Plus, Finebaum said he “knows what crowds [Sheridan] runs with” and has a good idea of who his source is.

Sheridan is pulling the kind of stunt that I lampooned in my guide to doing preseason punditry without ever being wrong. If you structure what you say just right, you can ensure that you never are actually incorrect about anything. Sportswriters pull that kind of stuff all the time, and Sheridan is doing it here.

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by Year2 on Aug 18, 2025 10:02 AM EDT up reply actions

He also said he had no idea if any of what he was saying was true, just what his

sources told him. Unlike Y! Sports with months of thorough investigative journalism, Danny just tosses out crap he heard with no proof as to whether what he heard is true or not. That is some good trolling!

by TexasAUtiger on Aug 17, 2025 4:55 PM EDT reply actions

The point he’s trying to make is that the NCAA thinks it knows the bag man. That’s news whether the NCAA is correct or not. Unfortunately for Finebaum’s show today, Sheridan already “broke” that news at SEC Media Days. It made anything he said today old news. For what it’s worth, Finebaum said in the 5:00 (ET) hour that he thinks he knows who Sheridan’s source is and thinks it’s a pretty good source.

The NCAA’s issue is that it needs some level of proof. They think they know who it is, but they need a third party to corroborate it. Sheridan himself compared it to the USC case: they knew Bush got benefits, but without Lloyd Lake coming forward as a witness, they couldn’t have proven it.

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by Year2 on Aug 17, 2025 5:18 PM EDT up reply actions

Finebaum...

majored in trolling the state of Alabama(minor in journalism) while at Tennessee

by Caban on Aug 17, 2025 5:29 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs

I am a Bama fan yet

I am sick to my stomach of Sheridan and Finebaum. These two played this thing up all week for nothing. Basically the same information they have been giving out since Media Days. If he isn’t willing to name names then he should shut the f**k up. A couple of attention whores.

by David Story on Aug 17, 2025 11:16 PM EDT reply actions

Doesnt finebaum do this every year or so about some AU or UA recruit he ‘knows things about’, he really brings nothing to the table but a captive audience that doesnt have any media savvy

ToB | @ToB

by Alabama ManDance on Aug 18, 2025 9:21 AM EDT up reply actions

Man that is shocking news!!

Not that the NCAA “knows” who the bag man is….its that SherriBaum came with more salcious innuendo with nothing to back it up…..again. I think the fact that the mainstream media isn’t covering this….at all….says VOLUMES about the credibility of SherriBaum and the allegation itself.

About the allegation….I am fairly confident that if the NCAA “knows” who the bag man is, they have also been able to ascertain that a money trail exists. Again, the NCAA is a lot of things, but normally they don’t need a high-def monitor to connect the dots on a picture. After all thats gone on, and all the scrutiny that this case has garnered, I just don’t see them taking the abuse that they have and sitting on this info and not acting on it. IF Sherridan is telling the truth….which I don’t think he is….then he has a source in the NCAA that knows the “players” in the money game and who “most likely” would have funneled money to the Newtons and they are waiting for him to make a mistake. I just don’t believe for a second that they would sit on the knowledge of a known bag man and not act on it. Like its been said before, they don’t have to have incontrivertable proof that something happened, they just need more than “this guy told me” or some garbled or faked voice mail. I’m confident that anything unscrupulous in appearance with any juice behind it, would be enough to get them to act. With all the other junk hanging out there in the world they are investigating, I can’t see why they would let this linger on if they have the goods. Unlike the USC/Bush case, there is no benefit that the Newtons have received that they can’t explain the origin of. Bush’s problem was that they couldn’t show how they paid for that house so it was only a matter of time before he was stung. So really, the Newton case is not like Bush at all….unless you just want to assume the Newtons will be eventually found out, which would seem to indicate that our journalism community is woefully inept at investigation.

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by Col.Angus on Aug 18, 2025 11:08 AM EDT reply actions

Thanks

Thanks for articulating it this way. This was my thought as well. I suspect this will be a long waiting game until either something happens that the NCAA can act upon or the statute of limitation has been reached (5 years?). Either way, we’ll have to listen to more speculation on talk shows and Auburn will be under a cloud for a while.

by AuburnMisfit on Aug 18, 2025 11:48 AM EDT up reply actions

I think as long as they begin an investigation within the statue of limitations window, they don’t have to worry about it closing.

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by Year2 on Aug 18, 2025 12:01 PM EDT up reply actions

Statute of limitations??

As far as the Newton case is concerned I don’t believe a “statute of limitations” exists. According to the bylaws, if the offense is of a grievous nature…..which it would be…..the statute of limitations doesn’t apply. If they get verification 10 years from now that Cecil cashed a check for $200K from Jimmy Ranes, I am confident that Auburn will get nailed.

Besides I don’t think the NCAA acts like a court of law where there is no “double jeapordy”. Even if they announce the case closed, there is nothing that says they can’t open it again if new info comes to light.

I just find it funny that since the Cam allegations came to light, UNC and Ohio State investigations started and ended. Miami WILL get killed and Oregon will probably get rung up as well. Auburn still isn’t under a formal investigation and absolutely nothing substantive has come of the Newton investigation in the 10 months since it was first reported, and yet hardly a week goes by without Cam and Auburn being branded as cheaters in waiting, often as an aside while mentioning the programs actually getting punished. Then of course we have the SherriBaums of the world, who just troll nonsense to keep their name in circulation. What a bunch of pathetic losers.

Col.Angus may be rough, Col.Angus may not smell like a bed of roses, but deep down Col.Angus is very sweet. If I overstay my welcome, just tap me on the head!!

by Col.Angus on Aug 18, 2025 1:04 PM EDT up reply actions

Not true

The NCAA does have a statute of limitations, which is four years back of the present. The only way things older than four years can be grouped into an investigation is if they are a part of a pattern of violations that extend into the four year window. For instance if it came out today that Rex Grossman got money from a booster back in 2002, there would be no case against Florida as long as that booster didn’t continue to give players money through August of 2007.

It is true that the NCAA doesn’t have a double jeopardy rule, but again, the statute of limitations window applies.

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by Year2 on Aug 18, 2025 1:38 PM EDT up reply actions

And once again the Colonel is right.

I just find it funny that since the Cam allegations came to light, UNC and Ohio State investigations started and ended. Miami WILL get killed and Oregon will probably get rung up as well.
Auburn still isn’t under a formal investigation and absolutely nothing substantive has come of the Newton investigation in the 10 months since it was first reported, and yet … hardly a week goes by without Cam and Auburn being branded as cheaters in waiting, often as an aside while mentioning the programs actually getting punished.
Then of course we have the SherriBaums of the world, who just troll nonsense to keep their name in circulation. What a bunch of pathetic losers.

Thanks Colonel, very well put!

AubTigerman
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by aubtigerman on Aug 19, 2025 9:06 AM EDT up reply actions

don't forget GT in that list of schools

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by tigertracker on Aug 19, 2025 11:02 PM EDT up reply actions

I'm not sure that's true.

I don’t know whether Cam or Cecil were paid, and I’m not taking a position on it. However, even if you assume that they were paid and that the NCAA has a witness who claims to know who the bagman is, that still doesn’t mean that the NCAA has enough evidence to warrant imposing major sanctions on a program as big as Auburn. The NCAA does not have subpoena power. They could not force the bagman to fess up, and there’s no reason he would do so voluntarily. They could not force the bagman’s or the Newtons’ banks to give up their records. They could not search the Newton’s home(s?) for stacks of cash, and, even if they did, they probably wouldn’t find anything.

The Bush case is very different in that there was a house involved and deeds are public record. Bank accounts are not.

Again, I have no idea whether the Newton’s were paid, but the fact that the NCAA hasn’t said anything yet doesn’t prove anything either way. Even if it did happen, we may never know unless the IRS gets involved.

by Spears on Aug 19, 2025 4:29 PM EDT up reply actions

OH

And how could I forget that the guy who paid Bush flipped and confessed to everything because Bush ripped him off. That’s never going to happen here. IF Cam was paid to play for Auburn, whoever paid him got his money’s worth.

by Spears on Aug 19, 2025 4:33 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs