What if Auburn quarterback Cam Newton had stayed with Florida Gators?

[Escambia94]

Discuss. Do you believe the history revisionists who think Cam Newton's departure hurt the Florida Gators in 2010? Personally, I am tired of hearing it. Cam stated it himself in this article and at times when questioned about his time in Gainesville, that he was way too immature back then. This leads me to believe that he needed to leave in order to blossom into what he has become.

From the Tampa Bay Times:

One player. One decision. And the future of a sport is rewritten.

That's how good Cam Newton was this season. That's how badly Florida could have used him.

I do not buy this statement. Newton struggled with our offense and could not beat out John Brantley IV in head-to-head competition. Cam was put in to run Tim Tebow plays--QB draws and quick dumps. He completed 5/10 passes for 40 yards in '07 and 1/2 for 14 in '08. In '08, JB4 was 18/28 for 235 with 3 TD and 1 INT. There was no information in 2009 to indicate that Newton was going to supplant JB4 as the successor to Tim Tebow. None. Not with a better offensive coordinator, not with better receivers, and not in any competition against JB4.

He left Gainesville, which might be the single greatest reason the Gators had their worst showing in the Southeastern Conference in more than 20 years. He landed in the SEC West, which helped lead to the dethroning of defending national champion Alabama.

And he will be starting at quarterback for Auburn against Oregon on Monday night in a game that could bring the Tigers their first national championship in more than a half-century.

This statement gets me. I am certain that our decline in Gainesville had something to do with 11 of our best players now starting in the NFL and piss-poor management of talent and bad execution on offense, and pedestrian play calling on offense.

That being said, if Cam Newton had stayed in Gainesville, I still think JB4 would have been named the starter. Camburglar would have played the role of Tebow to JB4's portrayal of Leak, and Burton & Reed would be playing tight end. In this scheme, Burton probably would be on the bench most of the year.

Let us pretend that Camburglar had beat out JB4 for the starting role or that JB4 got yanked--I still think he does no better than Burton or Reed. In other words, Cam needed to leave G'ville in order to gain the work ethic and desire (and $180K bonus) that it takes to win a Heisman, the highest single-season QB passer rating, and possibly a national championship.

Cam Newton will leave college football as one of the highest paid, and greatest college players in history. I challenge him to come back to repeat his performance in 2011, for free, and see if he deserves to be called the greatest of all time.

Just to drive the point home, since Cam will likely go to the NFL to get paid a little more than this year...

PLAYER NAME  COMP	ATT	YDS	COMP%
Tim Tebow '07	234	350	3286	66.9%
Tim Tebow '08	192	298	2746	64.4%
Tim Tebow '09	213	314	2895	67.8%
Cam Newton '09	204	336	2833	60.7%
Cam Newton '10	165	246	2589	67.1%

Tebow averages 66.4% completions across his three years as a starter to Newton's 63.9%. The magical milestone for QBs is 2/3 passing completion, which Timmy has. I would be called a Tebow homer if I said that Newton does not have it, but the numbers do not lie--and I am helping out Newton by neglecting his stats at Florida which were 50% completions both years.

	TD	TD%
Tim Tebow '07	32	9.1%
Tim Tebow '08	30	10.1%
Tim Tebow '09	21	6.7%
Cam Newton '09	22	6.5%
Cam Newton '10	28	11.4%

Tebow averages 27.67 TDs and 8.63% TD passes per year to Newton's 25 TDs and 8.96%. Tebow gets a slight advantage in number of TDs, but Newton gets a slight advantage in percent of TDs. Spin that any way you want.

	                INT	INT%
Tim Tebow '07	6	1.71%
Tim Tebow '08	4	1.34%
Tim Tebow '09	5	1.59%
Cam Newton '09	5	1.49%
Cam Newton '10	6	2.44%

Tebow averages 5 INTs per year at 1.55% INTs per attempt to Newton's 5.5 INTs and 2% INTs per attempt. There is no spin on this one. It is the QB's job to pass the ball to the guys with the same color jersey, and Newton can be expected to toss up 2% INTs or more if he returned next year.

	                RAT
Tim Tebow '07	172.47
Tim Tebow '08	172.37
Tim Tebow '09	164.17
Cam Newton '09	150.17
Cam Newton '10	188.16

Tebow averages 169.67 passer rating to Newton's 169.17. Fairly even, don't you think? One would assume that Newton could almost repeat a passer rating over 180 next year and finish off Timmy in the average passer rating statistic, but we will never know.

	     RUSH YPA	RUSH TD%
Tim Tebow '07	4.26	11.0%
Tim Tebow '08	3.82	6.8%
Tim Tebow '09	4.19	6.5%
Cam Newton '09	6.06	14.8%
Cam Newton '10	5.82	8.3%

Newton is clearly the better runner averaging almost 6 YPA and 11.5% rushing TDs to Tebow's 4 YPA and 8.1% rushing TDs.

The numbers skew to Tebow's favor if I were to only compare two years of Tebow to two years of Newton, but I wanted to tip the numbers in Newton's favor to avoid the "Tebow homer" accusations. Cam Newton is clearly a better runner, but Tim Tebow is clearly a more efficient passer. Newton will get the nod over Tebow because nobody else is looking at Newton's low passer rating at Florida (83.6 and 108.8 for an average between Florida and Auburn of 126.92 or 132.73 if you throw in Blinn College). We will never know if Newton would duplicate his 2010 campaign or prove 2010 to be an anomaly in passer rating. Newton will also get the nod in winning percentage.

If Cam Newton had played for Florida in 2010, do not believe the revisionist history buffs who say that we would have been playing Oregon for the national championship. Statistically, Newton is about even with Tebow, and Tebow could not single-handedly bring the 2007 or 2009 teams to a national championship--it takes a team to do that, not one player.

Both players elevated the play of the team, and the 2010 Auburn War Eagle Tigers are in the NC because they are a better team, not because of one player. That one player makes a difference, but that one player would have only had a minimal effect on the 2010 Florida Gators.

 

[The Zooker]

I've said all along that Cam wouldn't be the player he is today without the wake up call. While he was at Florida he didn't progress at all. He couldn't learn the playbook and was practiced poorly. Once he got let loose he was forced to refine his fundamentals at JC. Then he started putting forth his best effort and became a great player. I don't think he could have done that by staying at UF.

 

[GainesvillebornNraised]

we still would have had addazio and im pretty sure atleast 2 losses

the offense would of been a little better then tebow's last yr cuz cam is a much better runner but i think the passing game still woulda been garbage

 

[Escambia94]

we still would have had addazio and im pretty sure atleast 2 losses

the offense would of been a little better then tebow's last yr cuz cam is a much better runner but i think the passing game still woulda been garbage

You might be right. We will never know, but a lot of us expected 2010 to be a 2007-like year. Remember that 2007 was Tebow's best year statistically but we lost 4 games. It is entirely possible that if Newton were named the starter on day 1 of 2010 that we still could have lost 4-5 games because the entire team was not as the 2007 team.

 

[Gatorfan24]

I've said all along that Cam wouldn't be the player he is today without the wake up call. While he was at Florida he didn't progress at all. He couldn't learn the playbook and was practiced poorly. Once he got let loose he was forced to refine his fundamentals at JC. Then he started putting forth his best effort and became a great player. I don't think he could have done that by staying at UF.

I agree completely

 

[DRU2012]

While I follow and mostly agree with the above analysis, I myself have tended to approach this question (ie. "What if Cam had stayed?") from the opposite direction entirely--to wit: what would it have meant in terms of him and Dad's money-machinations? That is, I find it impossible to separate all of that from whatever else might have transpired; somehow or other, that horror show of allegations, repercussions and ultimate consequences (remember, that hasn't gone away: it's all just moving along in legal-limbo-time now, slow, quiet, relentless) would have likely bitten US somehow instead. As it is, it seems pretty obvious that Auburn has long since made a straightforward (if covert) back-room decision to trade all future consequences, WHATEVER they may turn out to be, for maximum glory for Cam and Auburn University NOW. This has evidently involved a calculation that expects the resulting windfall in both fame and fortune--and what those will bring to the university--to outweigh whatever consequences result from NCAA sanctions, etc. (if even THOSE are forthcoming: after the weirdly arbitrary NCAA rulings already with respect to MSU and Newton Sr., AND OSU's guys getting to play in their Bowl game, Auburn may be entertaining the hope that they might skate by after all! Still, there WILL be repercussions, they'll likely involve the vacating of victories, any title stripped, and USC-like sanctions on lost scholarships, television appearances and post-season play--and it seems they've long since accepted those as "worth it--even if it comes to that").
Thanks to first, Steve Spurrier, and subsequently Urban Meyer, we didn't need to even consider that kind of desperate dark passage in order to win Championships. Instead, over time we have seen the Florida Gators built into the elite institution and perennial football powerhouse that it is today. We don't WANT corners cut--there's too much to lose! Who among you didn't think right off, like me, when we first heard about the whole Cam-&-Dad pay-for-play thing, "I KNEW he was bad news...", and , right after that, "Thank God we let him go!" Frankly, I was surprised by the hand-wringing groans on the part of some Gator-faithful as Cam's rise began to gather pace, the wistful whines of, "Imagine what we COULD have been if he had stayed!" Beyond all the valid arguments already given above, there was the simple question: Why would we want to mess with ANY of that? We have a FUTURE! We'll be fine--as long as we carry on in our own tough , hard-working-but-honest fashion that has been the legacy of our last three and now FOUR head coaches (yes, I'm including Zook here--he wasn't much of an HC, aside from recruiting, but he WAS and is honest, and didn't "screw the whole thing up": Urban was able to come in and win within a couple of years, after all).
Look at what has just transpired here: what for us was a "mediocre" season ends with 8 wins and a nice Bowl victory, venerated Head Coach suddenly leaves, and we get the pick of the nation's young coaching talent--who comes in and installs a stunningly exciting regime who have clearly recharged the program, its players, alumni and fans. Talk about "landing on your feet"!
In contrast, look at what Auburn is having to risk (and ultimately sacrifice) in order to win just ONCE! Unless I'm very much mistaken, it'll end up taking them YEARS just to end up back where they were before they even started talking to Cam Newton.
One more set of obvious reasons why:
It's great to be a Florida Gator.

 

[Escambia94]

Good points. I had assumed that Camburglar staying in G'ville meant that Daddy Newton would not have needed to pimp out his son. I also assumed Urban Meyer still would have left in 2010. We will never know if all these events had to happen the way they did in order to get to where we are now--a program that is a little beat up, but has a bright, new future.

I read another article that asked if Urban Meyer was a mercenary that only intended to move from program to program to build champions and then leave. That article had some valid points, but I hesitate to call Urban Meyer a mercenary. I sincerely believe that he found a home in G'ville and truly got scared when his self-inflicted ailments scared him into believing that continuously facing the stresses of coaching the Gators would have killed him or forced a rift in his family. I believe that even if Cam stayed and let us say we somehow only lost to Alabama--Urban Meyer probably still would have retired. I doubt anything short of a Heisman performance from Cam would have kept Meyer here. We essentially saw Urban leave last year even with Tebow still here...and I do not think he first thought of quitting after the Alabama loss. Urban has never stayed in one place more than 5 years. Last year was his fifth and his last with Nikki in the house. He probably planned on looking for an out last year, but changed his mind out of loyalty to his staff and friends. Face it. We all failed to see that one way or another, Urban Meyer was not going to stay here forever.

Let us assume that Daddy Newton and Camburglar would have continued being dishonest and screwed up while Cam was playing #1 or #2 QB at Florida in 2010--we would not "get away with murder" as Auburn did. Other schools would have turned us in and we would probably be bowl-ineligible now. We don't want that kind of crap in our program. We have already suffered through that under both Pell and Hall. There is another good reason why it was good that we did not keep Cam Newton.

The best reason why we are better off without Cam Newton...Will Muschamp. Everything happens for a reason. It's great to be a Florida Gator!

 

[DRU2012]

You spun that "possible-alternate-reality" out well, E-...and, as I know you of all people are aware, ALL of these "P.A.R.'s" are, in mathematical/cosmological/"multiversal" terms, seen as distinct realities, slices of a totality, all "just a hair's breadth away"--and this time we'll leave THAT discussion right there!
The bottom line is the point you ended with, as far as I'm concerned: "We are better off without Cam Newton."
Regardless of what Cam Newton has and/or will accomplish, where his path will lead or might have led, as far as WE are concerned, one has only to step back and look at the bigger picture. That was and has continued to be my assessment since he left, AND as the various changes, revelations and disappointments (some directly related to him, some not at all) have played out through the 2010 season. As is usual with this chaotic system we call "reality", looking back it's clear that in SPITE of whatever any of us might have THOUGHT or PLANNED, once again "Life happened" and, "luck", "fate" or "God's Plan", none of us couldd have seen all this--OR PLANNED IT ANY BETTER, as it seems to have turned out, at least for Gator Nation.

 

[Gatorfan24]

He's a good athlete and all, but the tebow-shotgun style wasn't good for him at all.

 

[Escambia94]

He's a good athlete and all, but the tebow-shotgun style wasn't good for him at all.

Although the Gus Malzahn and Urban Meyer offenses are somewhat different, they are similar enough for the QB where it makes no sense why Cam Newton did not do so well when he was at Florida. The differences between the two offenses are in the personnel around the QB, but the QB position itself is markedly similar--shotgun, zone read, bubble screen, handoff to the RB to the edges, QB draw up the middle.

This is why I believe Newton's failures at Florida had nothing do to with his athletic prowess or QB skill and had everything to do with his work ethic and attitude--both of which were fixed by living the life of a monk out there at Blinn College...and 180,000 dollars in motivation if you believe the stories.

Would Cam Newton be able to match his 2010 output if he returned in 2011? I doubt it. I think Gene Chizik is downplaying Newton's impact to the team.

I think the NFL will tell us whether Cam Newton is the real deal. He is going to be compared to Tim Tebow and Jamarcus Russell no matter what, so let's sit back and watch the story unfold.

 

[DRU2012]

Either way, his "ghost" (in the form of compounding repercussions) will haunt Auburn U for months and years to come--I'd say "mark my words" but every one already KNOWS this; only the form and severity of the consequences are still in any doubt.
Not that this will necessarily bother Cam in the least--he has an amazing capacity to "compartmentalize"--as in basically not give a damn--otherwise sometimes referred to as "narcissism", a self-obsessiveness that leaves little room for concern about others, or the consequences of one's actions on them.
This is one guy we won't be cheering for. In fact, to the degree I follow him at all henceforth, it will be from a "How will he next screw the folks around him?"-POV.

 

[Escambia94]

I have a feeling that we will have to follow Cam Newton no matter what. The media loves to manufacture stories. We are going to hear from McShay and people like him as he is constantly being criticized and compared to Tebow and Jamarcus Russell. It's not over.

 

[robdog]

I think Florida would of been ripe with controversy and MASSIVE sanctions. Just watch, Auburn is going to get SCREWED in about 12 months when they receive the USC treatment.

Yes another National Title would of been sweet, but I am glad he didn't stay.

 

[DRU2012]

We'll get our Championships, and do it OUR way, right? (We'll be hated, but no one'll be taking them back!) Yeah, we dodged a bullet with Cam.
Meanwhile, I'm sure E-'s right: the media-dogs will have all kinds of material generated for them to gnaw on.
I HATE the Tebow-comparisons in particular though...inevitable as they may be, such connections are shallow and lazy, only valid on the surface. They are such different young men, so far removed in content-of-character as individuals as to make comparisons of their physical skills (themselves more different than might seem at first glance) almost beside the point.
I mean, here's the bottom line:
Auburn: Go ahead and hang your school's image, reputation and overall quality on that of Cam Newton.
We at Florida will gladly do the same with Tim Tebow.
America: Where do y'all prefer to send your sons and daughters?

 

[Escambia94]

I think Florida would of been ripe with controversy and MASSIVE sanctions. Just watch, Auburn is going to get SCREWED in about 12 months when they receive the USC treatment.

Yes another National Title would of been sweet, but I am glad he didn't stay.

The problem with Cam Newton is that we do not know cause-effect and sequence of events. Here is how I see it.

- Cam Newton arrived on campus in 2007 and beat out JB4 as the #2 QB. He probably racked up a billion parking tickets and cheated on a couple tests. [You can see the beginning of trouble here.]

- In 2008 he fell behind JB4 on the depth chart. Some say he fell behind due to injury and some say it was due to his deteriorating performance in practice. When I think really hard, I remember that Urban Meyer and Dan Mullen were disappointed in Cam Newton BEFORE he got injured. Unfortunately, Wikipedia and the rest of the world attributes the falling down the depth chart to injury alone. Along the way, he got more tickets, was caught cheating, and he was caught throwing the laptop out the window around Thanksgiving. By the way, his grades were falling into the toilet right before final exams. [History gets clouded here, but he is getting in trouble and the coaches are covering for him.]

- Urban Meyer was willing to give Cam Newton a second and third chance in 2009, but Cam had more reasons to turn it down when he figured Tim Tebow would return. In my opinion, Cam would have left even if Tebow stayed--he was not doing well in school, he was on probation with Mullen and Meyer for grades and performance during practice, he had honor code violations for being caught cheating in three classes that he failed any way AND he had the laptop incident. [He got into too much trouble to cover up and had no choice but to leave.]

- In January 2009, he transferred to Blinn College for the following reasons: 1) Not only would he have to back up Tebow, he was already behind Brantley on the depth chart and falling. 2) He was not grasping the playbook and he was getting lazy. 3) His grades were in the toilet and he probably would not be academically qualified to keep his scholarship. He did well at Blinn, because they essentially erased his UF academics, at least the classes that he failed. He won the JUCO national championship and was the only QB rated with 5 stars. This made him marketable. Whether he did it, or just his dad we do not know, but we do know that Cecil Newton discussed pay-for-play with Mississippi State. [This leads me to believe that if he stayed at Florida, there would never be that pay-for-play, because he was headed down the path of being a wash-out. He earned market value at Blinn, not Florida.]

- I actually do not believe that Auburn will lose its title. Even if Auburn did pay Cam to come play, the State of Alabama is notoriously crooked with police and politics. Unless the FBI thinks this is a big deal, nobody competent is going to investigate this and nail Auburn unless Nick Saban himself hires a private detective to look into "the other Alabama college". [If Cam had stayed at Florida, he never would have gained us a national championship, he never would have caused us NCAA sanctions, since he would have washed out by 2009. He would be sitting on the bench until he got his GPA up...assuming he was not thrown out for honor code violations.]

- Cam probably never intended to stay more than a year at Auburn. He had to make his mark this year, because next year he would probably have dropped back into his bad habits unless Gus Malzahn and Gene Chizik are doing bed checks on him and reading him his homework. [Cam Newton's plan worked to a T. Get into Auburn, boost his NFL stock, and get out before he self-destructs.]

Mark my words, Cam Newton will do well in the NFL, maybe even better than Tim Tebow statistically, but his bad habits will catch up to him. Why will he do better than Timmy? Because Timmy opened the door for him! Timmy erased the memories of Jamarcus Russell and Vince Young from the NFL scouts. Some NFL team is going to take Cam and "redshirt" him for half the season rather than throw him to the wolves as Jamarcus and Vince were. Cam will do well for a while until he goes all "Vince Young" on everyone and again self-destructs.

 

[DRU2012]

I don't know, E-; your mixture of cynical, world-weary realism and complex, deterministic logic chain makes quite a few arbitrary assumptions. I really can't fault any particular step as you outline it, but my OWN "gut-feeling" tells me that a breakdown anywhere along the way, either one factor changes or something in there isn't accounted for and the whole thing collapses--and almost certainly for the worse as far as Cam Newton is concerned, since the above is HIS "best case scenario" (ie. get rich before the bummer-wave finally, inevitably catches up to him).
That's all he AND Auburn have done so far: stayed ahead of their respective "waves of consequence and repercussion" that each has long since accepted as their "price of doing business", I think. Oh, there IS I'm sure the small, shining hope of "sliding through"--in Auburn's case because the money, power, reputations and forces at stake are huge enough to make some folks, certainly the most arrogant among them, believe that "a back-room deal and a blind eye" may prove expedient, that it (and THEY) are too BIG to have it all exposed.
Ironically enough, that works AGAINST Cam--he and Dad will be the FIRST to get thrown to the wolves, the sacrificial lambs when the sh*t hits the fan. And it WILL: these folk all have enemies even within their state--and anyway it won't stay regional this time. The Feds are involved, remember?
Cracks will form at any number of these and other weak points, and invariably once they do people start pointing fingers at each other. All kinds of dirt will come flying as the media throws itself a big "News Party".
Of course, barring anything unforeseen Cam should at least get his NFL $$$...better hold onto it, though, manage it well, 'cause I'm pretty certain the next couple of years are going to play hell with his endorsement potential!

 

[FloridaGator80]

could'a, should'a, would'a ... no answer will ever be available. remember, we've had the top-rated (or near-top) rated recruiting class for each of the past several years and where did that leave us this past season? only playing the 2011 season will answer questions about the future

 

[DRU2012]

I'm still hoping those last couple of "killer classes" will pay off for us--now more than ever with the timing AND nature of this wholesale change that has occurred in our program--but you're right: the forces at work, the complex swirling currents flowing together and apart, the various people, intentions and actual events have gotten so confused and intermingled as to well-demonstrate how chaotic--and therefore how unpredictable--all of these elements of cause and effect really are!
It may very well turn out great for us, but who could have seen where we're headed now from where we were even just a year ago? Pretty sobering thought, when you stop and consider it, filled with both warning and hope.