Danny Sheridan says he's passed a lie detector test that proves he told the truth about meeting with a person suspected by the NCAA of being the money man in the Cam Newton case, but he added that he will never divulge that person's name.

Sheridan, a Mobile-based sports analyst who has set odds for USA Today since the 1980s, said at a luncheon of the Mobile Bar Association on Friday that sources within the NCAA told him the man was suspected of paying $200,000 cash to Newton's father, Cecil Newton, and another $30,000 to the church where Cecil Newton was the pastor. Sheridan added that his sources told him the NCAA had a witness at Newton's church.

When presented with this at a meeting with Sheridan in Mobile this spring, the suspected money man denied the accusations, Sheridan said.

"I met with him for three hours in Mobile. He flew in," he said. "I grilled him as best I could. He said: 'What did they say I did?' I said, 'Well, they said you paid $200,000 cash to the father and they think you paid $30,000 to the church and they have a witness at the church -- to which he said in a nanosecond: 'If I'd have known how good he was, I'd have paid him a million dollars.'"

Sheridan said he took that as a denial. "I thought, the guy either really thinks well or he really is innocent," Sheridan said, adding that he followed up by asking the man point-blank whether he did it. "He said, 'I definitely didn't do it.'"

As to why the man would fly to Mobile and meet with him for three hours, Sheridan said the man told him he was curious what the NCAA was saying about him.

Sheridan created a firestorm last summer by saying on Paul Finebaum's syndicated radio show that an NCAA source told him the identity of a "bag man" it believed had helped recruit Newton to Auburn. He declined, however, to divulge the man's name.

"If I give out a guy's name on the air, what's going to happen?" Sheridan asked Friday. "He's going to sue me and what's the best defense in libel? The truth. I would have to give up my source."

He also did not disclose that he'd been told about the witness, whom he said later changed his mind about cooperating with the NCAA. "I'm not going to say publicly on Finebaum's national show: 'Hey, you don't believe me? The witness is at the church,'" Sheridan said Friday. "This poor church, they would descend on it like man-eating sharks in blood-infested waters. I'm doing it now because it's a year later."

He said he was asked by the NCAA in a meeting last August to reveal his sources, but refused because they would have been fired. The NCAA subsequently blasted Sheridan in a public statement, saying he made "vague unsubstantiated claims without backing them up with proof," and that the NCAA had not provided him with any information. In a response, Sheridan called the NCAA statement "propaganda and an absolute misrepresentation of the facts," and offered to take a polygraph test to prove he was telling the truth.

After receiving no response, Sheridan said he decided to take the polygraph test anyway because his family has being harassed. He said a retired FBI agent now in private business came to Mobile in June to give him what he described as a "grueling" test of more than five hours.

In a copy of the polygraph report provided to the Press-Register, Sheridan was asked: "Did you meet with someone who is suspected by the NCAA of making payments to Cecil Newton?"

Sheridan answered, "Yes." The polygraph examiner, who requested to not be identified, noted in his report that he detected no deception.

Sheridan said Friday that the entire episode started with a request from Finebaum to find out the status of the Newton case. He added that he now regrets declaring what he found out on the radio.

"Yes, I do regret going on the air. I didn't plan it," Sheridan said. "It was an error in judgement, 100 percent. If I could do it again, I wouldn't have gone on."

He added that in taking the polygraph test, "I feel the weight of the world has been taken off my immediate family and close friends' shoulders, as now they can say when badgered occasionally in public: He told the complete truth."

As to whether he believes Newton was ever paid, Sheridan said Friday: "My answer is a politically correct, 'I don't know.'

"Do I think Auburn participated in paying him? No. Do I think anybody with the coaching staff or the school (paid him)? No. Do I think a rogue alumni, well-meaning alumni, paid him? I don't know, but I wouldn't bet my life on it."

Sheridan did touch on other subjects during his address Friday, offering his predictions for the upcoming college football season. He said the national championship match-up will likely be decided on Nov. 3, with the winners of the Alabama-LSU and USC-Oregon games on that day meeting each other for the crystal football in Miami. He picked Alabama and South Carolina to play in the SEC championship game.

Sheridan said Georgia will be favored in every game it plays this year, while Alabama and LSU will be favored in every game except when they play each other. That game on Nov. 3, he said, would be even if it were this week.

Sheridan predicted Alabama's defense would have trouble with passing offenses this season and repeated a critique he'd made previously of Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron, saying that while the Mobile native "could be another Joe Namath," he has no faith in his ability to lead the Crimson Tide back from a deficit.

While he praised Alabama's offensive game plan in the 21-0 BCS championship game win over LSU as "magnificent," he added: "In fairness to (McCarron), the offense doesn't really let you show your talents. If Joe Namath was playing at Alabama right now, he'd quit."

Sheridan picked Auburn to finish fourth in the SEC West, saying head coach Gene Chizik has "underachieved" in his three years on the Plains. "I thought he would do a lot better," Sheridan said. "You can't have these (recruiting) classes and say, 'Oh, we're young.'"

Sheridan also touched on politics, calling incumbent Mobile mayor Sam Jones a "prohibitive favorite" to be re-elected, and making President Barack Obama a 2-1 favorite to defeat Mitt Romney in this year's presidential election.