With Cam Newton about to play in Super Bowl 50 and probably win the NFL’s MVP award, it’s clear at this point that he was a good fit for the quarterback position.
Steve Spurrier and Mark Richt thought Cam Newton could be a tight end
Well, that would’ve been something.
But a couple of college football’s most famous coaches didn’t always see it that way, as Buddy Martin of Gridiron Now helpfully reminds us this weekend. Steve Spurrier, the longtime South Carolina coach who finally hung up his visor during this past season, viewed Newton as a possible tight end:
“Fantastic athlete. He’s the quarterback of the future,” Spurrier said of Newton. “Every team in America would like to have somebody who is big and strong and can run like him. It really puts a lot of pressure on the defenses. So he’s the prototype quarterback now.”
Recalling the day about decade ago when Newton and his dad came to one of his football camps, Spurrier said he was immediately impressed with Cam’s size (at the time, 6 feet 5 and 230 pounds) and agility.
“And I was smart enough to say, ‘If you can’t make it at quarterback, you could be a heck of a tight end.’”
Mark Richt, the former Georgia head coach now at Miami, said in 2010 that he saw something similar in the eventual Heisman Trophy-winning/national championship-winning/ No. 1 overall draft pick/probable NFL MVP/possible Super Bowl-winning signal caller:
“I remember him, a very talented guy, a guy that we looked at. We actually had him pegged more as a tight end prospect. A lot of it had to do with what we liked to do offensively. It was more of a fit than any type of disrespect to his ability to play quarterback.”
It would’ve been fun to watch Newton go full Gronkowski on fade routes in the corner of the end zone. But it’s safe to say his ultimate placement as a quarterback at Florida then Auburn worked out OK.
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