Allegations about Auburn quarterback Cam Newton’s past off-field conduct are piling up at an equally impressive rate to his Heisman Trophy-caliber stats.
The latest talk is of Newton’s academic record while playing at Florida, when a source told FOXSports.com that he cheated in class on three separate occasions.
According to the source, Newton was caught cheating as a freshman, and, as a sophomore he put his name on another student’s paper and purchased one off the Internet when told to write his own.
Rumors surfaced that UF football coach Urban Meyer was the source for the story, but he denied that Tuesday in a statement.
“Our entire focus right now is on preparing for our biggest game of the year against South Carolina,” Meyer said. “For anyone to think that I or anyone on our staff may have leaked information about private student records to the media doesn’t know us very well. It’s a ridiculous claim and simply not true.”
The two incidents with the plagiarized papers allegedly took place after Newton’s November 2008 run-in with police over the purchase of a stolen laptop, and he was due to appear before UF’s Student Conduct Committee in Spring 2009 but transferred instead.
No one from Florida has neither confirmed or denied the report, but a UF spokesman said Newton would not necessarily have faced expulsion in the scenario presented.
Hearings in front of the Student Conduct Committee are done to produce a recommended course of action for the Dean of Students, who has the final say.
“There are no automatic consequences at the University of Florida,” UF spokeswoman Janine Sikes said. “It depends on the totality of the issues. Each one is a case-by-case basis, and they really mean that. There is no single ‘If you do this, this is what happens.’”
A wide range of punishments is available, from a written reprimand to suspension or expulsion.
UF expels roughly one to two students per year and suspends about 10, Sikes said, but both numbers are skewed by students choosing to leave the school rather than face punishment.
Representatives of the Florida football team had no comment on the situation.
“We can’t comment on federally-protected student records,” Gators team spokesman Steve McClain said.
