OU football: Stoops says few hands are out
Bob Stoops says that not only does he not know of Cam Newton having his hand out for cash when the Sooners tried to recruit the quarterback, he doesn’t know of any similar situations in his career.
Newton is accused by Mississippi State people of asking for $180,000, through a representative, to sign with the Bulldogs.
“I haven’t heard of one of those in I can’t remember when,” Stoops said. “I don’t know if I’ve heard of one in my whole recruiting history.”
The Newton — and Reggie Bush — scandals have shed a new and most definitely unfavoring light on football. Basketball has been this kind of cesspool for years. Is it more prevalent in football than we thought?
Stoops says no. He says he believes football is mostly clean.
“I haven’t been able to keep up with what’s being said” in the Newton case, Stoops said. “I feel incredibly bad for the young man.”
Stoops said he thinks the allegations that Newton at Florida was guilty of academic cheating “isn’t an issue.” Stoops said 18-year-olds make foolish mistakes at times and that cheating on a test isn’t against the law and isn’t an NCAA violation.
Stoops said any player with his hand out would be summarily rejected, and that while he knows of no requests for payouts, the Sooners have encountered situations where the living room fills up with people besides the parents and maybe the high school coach, advisers or representatives, and “we’ve fallen off pretty quick because we don’t go down that road.”
Stoops said no players are promised a position, which sort of goes with the territory of someone wanting hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“Adrian Peterson was never promised a position, Cam Newton, anybody,” Stoops said. “It’s never, ‘Hey, you come here, we’ll promise you a position.’ It’s, ‘You’re going to work hard. You’re going to go to school.’
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