AMERICA AT LARGE:CERTAIN PARTS of the US, the Deep South among them, harbour a devotion to the world of collegiate football that knows no bounds, writes GEORGE KIMBALL

The scores of weekly NFL games are duly noted, and if you look hard enough you might even find the results of the World Series recorded somewhere in the sports pages of a newspaper in Birmingham or Jackson or Starkville, Mississippi.

That the onset of the National Basketball Association season might barely be noted (and that of the National Hockey League not at all) does not so much suggest an insular animus on the part of sports editors of the Old Confederacy as it does reflect accurately the obsession of their readership.

In addition to the daily dispatches on the football fortunes of the local state university, southern sports pages are apt to be dominated by the latest tabulations of the national rankings (replete with editorial reaction to same) and, in recent years, the unofficial “Heisman Watch”, in which the statistics of what are perceived to be the top candidates for the end-of-season trophy awarded to the nation’s top college performer are monitored and scrutinised.

Which is not to say we in the northeast are entirely unmindful of these matters. We just tend to have a different, and perhaps healthier, perspective when it comes to NCAA football – which is probably why this ever-mushrooming Cam Newton story took so long to pick up steam in my part of the world.

Underneath a headline on the Birmingham Newswebsite yesterday which wondered whether l'affaire Newton was "the biggest story in college football history", Keith Dunnavant, identified as "a sports historian and author of several books on college football", was quoted on the subject: "There's never been a situation quite like this, where the unquestioned best player in the game is engulfed in such a major, headline-dominating scandal while leading his team into contention for the national championship. Never before has a major programme been placed in such a precarious position, faced with such a difficult decision."

In a press release dated last December 31st, the Auburn University office of sports information revealed that “Auburn football have signed junior college quarterback Cameron Newton to a national letter of intent, announced head coach Gene Chizik”.

The release noted that before transferring to Blinn Junior College in Texas, Newton had attended the University of Florida, where he had played in five games in 2007.

It might be pointed out that at the time Auburn were not even regarded as the best college team in their own state. Their traditional rival, the University of Alabama, occupied the number one spot in the preseason national rankings, while Auburn were not listed among the top 20 teams. Neither did the first “Heisman Watch” back in September include Newton’s name – although he was quickly branded a Heisman “sleeper” off his performance against Arkansas State in the season opener.

That picture has altered dramatically over two-and-a-half months. With only their traditional, season-ending game against Alabama in Birmingham and the Southeastern Conference championship game (in which they will face South Carolina, a team they have already beaten) to play, Auburn are 11-0 and ranked a close second to Oregon, whom they will almost certainly face in January’s national championship game. And as other Heisman hopefuls have fallen by the wayside, Newton, who has passed for more than 2,000 yards and 21 touchdowns while rushing for nearly 1,300 and 17 more, has emerged the clear-cut leader.

Over the past month, the success of both Newton and his team began to attract scrutiny, inspired, perhaps, by the unprecedented case of Reggie Bush. This September, Bush, a New Orleans Saints running back, was forced to return his 2005 Heisman Trophy in the wake of a scandal over under-the-table payments during his collegiate career at Southern California. (USC ultimately forfeited the national title it had won as well.)

The initial reports revealed that Newton’s departure from Florida had not been exactly voluntary, that he had gotten out of Gainesville one step ahead of the posse. Having been caught cheating on three occasions, Newton also faced criminal charges after being implicated in the theft of a laptop from a fellow student.

Having been caught squarely in the crosshairs, Newton quickly became the target of what Auburn supporters insist were nosy, scandal-mongering journalists out to smear his name. It shortly came to light that following his matriculation at Blinn, his father, Cecil, acting as his agent, had attempted to hand him to the highest bidder, and that before settling on Auburn had openly discussed a pay-off of between $100,000 and $150,000 to steer Cam to Mississippi State. (Cecil Cameron has subsequently confirmed making financial demands, and Mississippi State says it turned over details of the unconsummated transaction to the NCAA way back in January.)

The cheating charges, while academically damning, almost seem a case of “boys will be boys”. In the most serious instance, he was caught putting his name on a term paper written by another student. Given a second chance, he then submitted a paper copied from the internet.

Neither does the laptop episode exactly paint the picture of a criminal mastermind. According to a Florida University police report, an investigating officer spotted the stolen computer in Newton’s dormitory room, but while he waited outside the door pending the arrival of a search warrant, the evidence vanished. It was Newton’s misfortune that the warrant also covered his mobile phone, on which, it turned out, he had texted a friend with instructions for disposing of the laptop after Cam heaved it out the window.

Ancient history, say the Auburn supporters, who blame Florida (and Mississippi State) for leaking the sordid details. And perhaps they are right. Maybe Cam Newton has turned over a new leaf and deserves another chance.

But in the meantime, at the implicit heart of all this are a couple of other nagging questions people ought to be asking.

How has a guy who had to cheat his way through Florida managed to remain academically eligible at Auburn, since the erstwhile Alabama Polytechnic Institute ostensibly maintains even more stringent academic standards? If his father, in the end, turned up his nose at $100,000 from Mississippi State, how much might it have cost Auburn to land Cam Newton?

The immediate effect is that various campuses across the southland have been swarming with FBI agents over the past few days, and it has become a story of sufficient national interest that even the New York Times is paying attention. The NCAA is conducting a parallel investigation, but those are notoriously slow and painstaking. (See Bush, Reggie, above.)

In the meantime, some maintain that rather than jeopardise itself further, Auburn should do the honourable thing and withhold Newton from competition while this plays itself out.

With the ’Bama game coming up? Fat chance.