A couple of major college football coaches once thought Cam Newton should play tight end. It’s one of the quirkier, more enjoyable recruiting tales of this century.
Cam Newton’s little brother is starring at Howard, so Cam’s making UGA QB jokes
Caylin Newton wasn’t the same recruit as his big brother, but the joke’s still sort of funny.
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When Newton was coming out of high school in Georgia in 2007, he was ranked the No. 2 dual-threat quarterback in the country. But both South Carolina’s Steve Spurrier and Georgia’s Mark Richt were primarily interested in Newton as a tight end, not a QB.
Newton didn’t pick either of them. He signed with Florida as a quarterback, transferred out, spent a forgotten JUCO year at Blinn College, and landed at Auburn in 2010. Georgia went 6-7 in ’10, while Auburn went 14-0 and won the national title behind Newton’s Heisman-winning efforts. The whole thing’s a bit of a shame for UGA.
Now, Newton’s little brother is an emergent star for Howard, and Cam’s got UGA jokes.
Las week, Caylin Newton, a freshman QB, led the Bison to the biggest point-spread upset in college football history: A win at UNLV as a 45.5-point underdog. Newton had 21 runs for 190 yards and two touchdowns. He was 15-of-26 passing for 140 and another TD, and his team won 43-40.
Cam Newton says he teased Panthers linebacker Thomas Davis, a UGA alum:
“I said, ‘Man, listen: Georgia needs a winner, and every Newton I know is a winner,’” Newton recalled at a press conference this week. “‘You dig what I’m saying?’ So they missed out on yet another one.”
The joke’s funny because UGA missing out on local QBs is a bit of a Thing.
Caylin played high school ball in Atlanta. So did Cam, and Georgia didn’t land him.
Also notable: Ex-Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson, now with the Texans. Watson was a high four-star in the class of 2014, from Gainesville, Ga. That’s just about an hour from Athens, and getting Watson is a potentially painful what-if for Dawgs fans.
UGA’s generally done fine recruiting QBs. The Dawgs’ starter in Week 1 was five-star Jacob Eason, and now that he’s hurt, his replacement is high-four-star freshman Jake Fromm. Some evaluators think Fromm should’ve been a five-star. (Fromm is local, while Eason’s from Washington state.)
The top two recruits in the country for 2018 are Georgian quarterbacks, Justin Fields of Kennesaw and Trevor Lawrence of Cartersville. Lawrence already signed scholarship papers with Clemson, and Fields is considering UGA among several others, but not considered likely to go there. Georgia’s piled up enough QB talent that missing both wouldn’t be devastating, at least not now.
Caylin Newton wasn’t nearly the recruit that any of these guys were or are.
On his 247Sports profile, Caylin Newton doesn’t have any listed FBS offers. Hampton, Savannah State, and Kentucky Christian also offered. Newton’s listed as a low three-star. He’s also listed at 5’11, a far cry from his gigantic (6’5) brother.
Why wasn’t Caylin Newton recruited more heavily? Cam says:
“I think he’s a very undersized quarterback. But yet it doesn’t measure the heart that he has, what he brings to the table. He has that ‘it’ factor that lets or to have guys follow him. That’s what you want in your quarterback. To take a program like Howard, to take a program that isn’t necessarily known for certain things and change the whole retrospect of what people think, now hearing him talk on the phone and hearing his responses to different things, it’s like people, I’m telling him: ‘You’re giving people hope.’ A team that has probably been known for their band, people are going to football games to watch football now, not just to listen to the band play.”
Howard went 3-19 the last two seasons, and it’s known almost zero recent success. Caylin Newton’s trying to change the program’s image.
He’s off to a good start.
