Hey, no shock there lol.
I’m not particularly worried about these new revelations, and we’ve never been too concerned with anything Thamel has to say.
Unlike others named in the DOJ report, the recruiting aspect of the scandal doesn’t touch us. The DOJ said the investigation into Auburn was limited to Person. What we lost Danjel and Austin over was impermissible benefits after they were already on campus. Person’s actions were limited to paying players to steer them to an agent in anticipation of them going pro.
Going only by the DOJ report, this at worst means we could vacate any games in which they participated after they took money, which would mean most of last year, but they’ve been held out all season this year.
That being said, there could certainly be some recruiting violations or other impermissible benefits yet to have been revealed, especially considering the fact that we’re the nouveau rich as far as basketball is concerned, and there could certainly have been some shady goings on with Austin, Danjel or Mustapha’s recruitment that implicate Pearl. I’m not naive enough to claim Auburn is definitely clean as a whistle. Just can’t see how badly this hits us, if at all, until more evidence comes to light.
But hey, if this report is as bad as folks are insinuating, it’s going to hit a lot of programs. If it hits us too, so be it. The sport is due for a colonic.