Auburn's Chizik... talk with NCAA rep “not confrontational”

Chizik was confident, if not entirely accurate, in his portrayal of the situation.

“The NCAA on more than one occasion said that Auburn has done nothing wrong in the recruitment of Cam Newton,” he said. “Nothing’s changed. I can’t control everybody’s microphone, can’t control every opinion. I don’t try to. But I feel very good when my head hits the pillow at night.”

The NCAA reinstated Newton after Auburn briefly suspended him before the SEC championship game, saying that there wasn’t sufficient evidence that either he or the school knew of father Cecil Newton’s efforts to sell his son’s services to Mississippi State.

NCAA President Mark Emmert has since explained it as a judgment call by the reinstatement—not the enforcement—staff while acknowledging that some found the decision “morally objectionable.”

“There was no evidence that money had changed hands and there was no evidence that Auburn University had anything to do with it,” Emmert said in February.

The NCAA has said those comments only dealt with the reinstatement decision and that a school is notified when an investigation is closed.