When allegations began to surface that Auburn University had payed players and changed poor grades, you had to know the situation was very fluid and additional transgressions may began to surface as well. According to ESPN, it doesn’t just stop there.
The new report indicates that during the tenure of former head coach Gene Chizik, there was a widespread synthetic marijuana problem at the school.
The 2010 national champion Auburn Tigers were gripped by an epidemic of synthetic marijuana use that led to a rash of failed drug tests and a decision at the highest levels of the university to keep the results confidential, ESPN has learned.
A six-month investigation by ESPN The Magazine and E:60 into the spread of synthetic marijuana at Auburn reveals that a dozen students on the football team, including its star running back, Michael Dyer, failed tests for the designer drug. The investigation also found that because the school did not implement testing for the drug until after it won the national championship in January 2011, as many as a dozen other seniors who used synthetic marijuana were never caught.
It is worth noting that the NCAA didn’t ban synthetic weed until August 11, 2011, but it was banned in the state of Alabama back in May of 2010. So now the question begs, why did Auburn hide all of the failed drug tests? Athletic Director Jay Jacobs offered this.
“We did all we could do to educate our student-athletes until [we] could understand exactly what we’re dealing with,” Jacobs told The Magazine. “I think just like the rest of the campus, and the nation, we were trying to figure it out.”
It will be interesting to see the fallout from these new reports and when the NCAA decides to step in. You have to wonder whether all of those wins and that 2010 National Championship are safe.
