re: Auburn paid players and changed grades?

Auburn Rivals had an interview with Mike Blanc, a player quoted in the report. Take it how you will, because it's probably way too long to actually get read here.

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ROBERTS QUOTES YOU SAYING GRADES WERE CHANGED FOR MIKE DYER, AND SAYS YOU ALLEGE THAT AUBURN OFFERED TO PAY DARVIN ADAMS TO STAY HIS SENIOR YEAR: "None of that is true."

WHAT'S YOUR REACTION TO ROBERTS CLAIMING YOU ALLEGE DARVIN ADAMS WAS OFFERED MONEY? "That's not true. I never said Auburn offered Darvin anything. Darvin never has personally come to me and told me any of this stuff. I said Mike has talked to Darvin, too. Mike actually is closer to Darvin than I am. I don't know if Mike and Darvin had a conversation about it, but I know, personally, Darvin didn't tell me any of that. The person from whom she heard and the person I heard was the same person. Mike told me! Mike told me the same thing he told her! This whole situation is just crazy. I can't believe how people's words are being used and thrown around.


AuburnSports.com

Mike Blanc, a senior on the 2010 National Championship team, reacts to his part in a questionable report by Selena Roberts.
"It sounds to me like she got a lot of this information from Mike. Anybody she interviewed, she basically said they all agreed with what Mike said. We all know Mike. That's the only reason we conducted interviews with her. We were told it was just to try to put some light on Mike's situation. It was basically asking us stuff about his character, what kind of character he is. I was like: Hey, Mike's a great guy, good father, those are the things I was saying. It wasn't stuff like: Hey, I've been told that this guys received this or this guy's grade was changed. I don't have fact on that. I can't speak about things I don't have facts on."

HAVE YOU TALKED TO DARVIN, OR OTHER PLAYERS QUOTED IN THE STORY? "I haven't spoken to Darvin. The only one I've talked to is Antoine Carter. Antoine Carter basically told me, what he was basically saying, was that she basically was trying to get us to agree on stuff that other people told her, what Mike told her. All those quotes in there are not true. I've seen that other players have come forward saying their quotes aren't true, too.

"When you have a undefeated season like we had, people are going to talk. If we would have gone 8-8, nobody would have cared. Since we were undefeated and won a championship, then everyone have something to say. Even like Cam. No one started talking about Cam until we were 7-0 or something like that. "

WAS GRADE CHANGING EVER BROUGHT UP? "She said her sources, meaning other players, I think she means Mike McNeil told her that people's grades were changed. Me personally I don't know anyone that told me their grades were changed and my grades were definitely not changed. I've never had any grades changed at Auburn, I worked hard for my grades."

WERE YOU ACCURATELY QUOTED? "Those quotes are not true. Mike Dyer, those guys, what I told her, when she came to me asking me stuff, it was her saying it was information that she already knew. It wasn't even actually questions, it was, 'hey, I heard this happened'. It was her telling me what she says she knows. I said, 'Where are you getting that stuff from?' She interviewed Mike McNeil before she talked to me.

"I think she got information from him -- when Mike McNeil told me I would receive a call from her, he just said this is a lady that's trying to help my case and she wants to know some things about my character. If I knew she was going to slander Auburn and slander my name, I never would have talked to her. Mike is a teammate of ours and if it was something that could help him, I'm all about helping anybody. But if I knew it was to slander and talk badly about people, I never would have agreed to talk to her."

WERE YOU ACCURATELY QUOTED TALKING ABOUT THE DRESS CODE? Mike McNeil has long hair. What Mike McNeil told me, when (Gene) Chizik came in, that supposedly the guy with long hair (the coaches) were trying to do something about it. Not just Mike. All football players have long hair -- white guys, black guys. If you play football or basketball, you have tattoos. That's what he told her. When she says she heard it, I heard it, too. From Mike.

"None of that stuff, as you can see, was true because none of the guys had to cut their hair or anything like that. Mike had long hair all throughout his career."

ROBERTS WROTE MORE THAN 40 PLAYERS TESTED POSITIVE FOR RECREATIONAL DRUGS AFTER THE BCS NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: "She said that stuff to me, she mentioned it, but even when I heard that, that was news to me. Some of the stuff she said, that was new to me and I was on the team. I was like, 'are you serious?' I thought this was new information and I was on the team."

ROBERTS SAID YOU HAD 'COURAGE' FOR SPEAKING OUT AND SHE DIDN'T KNOW YOUR REASONS FOR SPEAKING OUT, WHAT'S YOUR RESPONSE? "She said I don't know why? That's funny. The information she already had was stuff I didn't know about and stuff she was telling me she knew already."

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