Adding Cam Newton before the 2010 season was a game-changer for the Auburn Tigers.

In his lone season with the team, Newton won the Heisman Trophy winner, accounted for 4,369 total yards and 51 touchdowns and brought the Tigers an undefeated record en route to a national championship.

He isn’t the only quarterback who has found success recently with the Tigers.

Three years after Newton’s magical season, Nick Marshall, a transfer cornerback from Georgia, became Auburn’s next household name at quarterback. He finished his career with a 20-7 record (11-5 SEC) and accounted for 6,425 yards and 57 touchdowns.

Now, Auburn has Baylor transfer Jarrett Stidham, who took the Tigers to the SEC Championship in his first season while racking up 3,005 yards and 21 touchdowns.

He’s a redshirt sophomore so Stidham could leave The Plains early for the NFL. It’s not likely, however.

That means he’ll probably be the Tigers’ quarterback for the foreseeable future, which lines up perfectly for a player that just signed on to join the Tigers in 2018.

Joey Gatewood has been committed to Auburn since December 2015. He was the first commitment in the class, and he never wavered on his loyalty to the Tigers. That’s important for a player at the most crucial position in football.

The 4-star prospect, the nation’s No. 3 athlete according to 247Sports, is exactly the type of player who can become Auburn’s next elite playmaking quarterback.

He’s listed at 6 feet 4, 232 pounds, and he has the level of athleticism that reminds head coach Gus Malzahn of Newton, a quarterback he coached during the 2010 season when he was the Tigers’ offensive coordinator.

“There’s only one Cam Newton and I think everybody knows that, but just from if he walked in the room, he’d look like Cam Newton,” Malzahn said Wednesday in an interview with the SEC Network. “That’s probably the fairest and best way to put that assessment.”

Credit: Shanna Lockwood-USA TODAY Sports

No, Gatewood isn’t 6-6, 250 — at least not yet. But, he’s a gifted athlete who shows the rare ability to provide both power and finesse at a position that doesn’t really require either.

What made Newton such a special runner was his ability to set up defenders to pick their poison. If they chose to come hard — bringing a physical approach to tackling him — he’d use his elusiveness to make them miss. If a defender broke down to make the tackle, Newton would just run him over.

He mixed that with his passing ability to become nearly impossible to stop in college.

Another similarity between Newton and Gatewood is raw accuracy as a passer. Both players have strong arms, but the mechanics can sometimes be spotty, somewhat hindering each of their ceilings as a passer.

Newton’s success as a runner mitigated those accuracy issues at Auburn, however. Defenses were so focused on his running it reduced their effectiveness against the pass.

Gatewood could end up the same way. If he can be an adequate passer — for which he certainly shows the tools — then he can combined that with a lethal combination of size and athleticism in the run game.

He’s raw as a passer, but the clip below is the perfect representation of the type of playmaking that he can bring — with his arm — to Auburn’s offense.

Newton was only at Auburn for one season. It’s scary to think Malzahn could possibly have a similar player for the next three to five years.

There’s no guarantee that the new recruit will bring anything close to the same success that the current Carolina Panthers starting quarterback did to The Plains. But Gatewood has the tools, the drive and the love for Auburn necessary to succeed.

Now, all we have to do is wait and see how it plays out.SaveSave

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