Unbelievable Hypocrisy Re: Cam Newton (and RichRod)

Watching ESPN First Take this morning and hearing these people talking about Cam Newton is nauseating. A few quick highlights:

a. We're kidding ourselves if we don't think many college football players are paid, so why focus all the attention on Heisman frontrunner Cam Newton?

b. We don't have any proof yet. Why are we blowing this so far out of proportion without a shred of proof that anything has actually taken place? It's all he-said she-said at this point.

c. This seems like somewhat of a smear campaign on a successful football player, and at this point it's unfairly focusing negative attention on him and his school.

I can actually agree with many of these points, although it seems like there is a little bit of proof that something out of the ordinary took place. What is driving me insane is that you can apply all of these points to the garbage that RichRod had to put up with in the last year.

It's common knowledge that almost every college football team in division one probably didn't follow practice time rules down to the minute. But RichRod got dragged through the mud, without any proof at the time (just a lot of he-said she-said at the time of the accusations), and as many of us can agree, it seemed a lot like it was a smear campaign that unfairly focused negative attention on RichRod and the University of Michigan.

Where was anyone in the mainstream media when RichRod's accusations were swirling? It was about practice time, and this is about a player getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to go to a school. Yet here come the Cam Newton backers, saying "everybody does it", "it's all hearsay at this point", and "this seems like a smear campaign". Absolutely unbelievable.

Is there a difference to you? What are your feelings on Cam Newton vs. the whole RichRod situation?