A closer look at Cam Newton’s 2010 season, why it’s the best by an SEC QB

Not many knew what to expect from Cam Newton when he made his Auburn debut against Arkansas State in 2010.

Sure, he looked the part at 6-foot-6, 250 pounds. He played the part in leading Blinn College to the NJCAA national championship. There was little doubt that he’d win the starting job over Neil Caudle, Barrett Trotter and Clint Moseley.

The performance in the first game was enough for Red Wolves coach Steve Roberts to say, “He is the best player I have ever seen live.”

Roberts’ offensive coordinator at the time, Hugh Freeze, watched as Newton passed for 186 yards, 3 TDs and ran for 171 yards, 2 TDs to energize the Heisman hype machine (just the first of five 100-100 performances with at least 4 TDs).

Still at the time, no one would’ve ventured to predict that Newton would have the most impressive season by an SEC QB in history, and that’s what it was.

There isn’t any one thing to shine a light on that proves this, and there never is for such a bold statement, but a hallowed trifecta goes a long way. In 2010, Newton became just the third quarterback ever to win a Heisman while going undefeated with a national title in the same season. Just three years later, Florida State QB Jameis Winston became the fourth.

QBs TO WIN HEISMAN, GO UNDEFEATED, WIN NATIONAL TITLE IN SAME SEASON

We listed Matt Leinart here, but he was kicked out of this very exclusive club when the Trojans’ BCS national championship in 2004 was vacated, thanks to Reggie Bush and O.J. Mayo.

Newton and Winston were the only two to lead 14-0 squads and both were taken as the No. 1 overall pick in their respective drafts. No other player had pulled off this triple in more than 60 years previously.

But let’s get back to Newton. His worst game not-so-coincidentally came in his first SEC contest, which also happened to be on the road five days after the season opener. Against Mississippi State, Newton went for 136 yards, 2 TDs and an INT to go with 70 rushing yards and 22 receiving yards.

He didn’t exactly bounce back the next game at home against Clemson. He tossed a pair of picks, but he somehow managed to throw for 203 yards despite only completing seven passes and led Auburn to a 27-24 overtime victory.

As a passer, Newton had thrown at least 2 TDs in each of his first five games, but he wasn’t always finding the right jerseys. Newton was intercepted five times through the first six games, but only twice over the last eight.

As a result, Newton notched the most efficient season by a quarterback in SEC history.

HIGHEST SINGLE-SEASON PASS EFFICIENCY IN SEC HISTORY (MIN. 15 ATTEMPTS PG)

Any offensive coordinator would die to have a talent like Newton under center, but then-offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn had exactly what he needed for his run-heavy, zone read concept.

Newton went wild on the ground, showing playmaking ability with power and speed on the way to 1,473 rushing yards, still an SEC record for a quarterback after surviving Johnny Manziel’s tear in 2012 (1,410 yards) and Nick Fitzgerald this past season (1,375 yards).

Outside of those three players just mentioned, the only SEC QBs to run for 1,000 yards also did it on The Plains: Nick Marshall in 2013 (1,068) and Jimmy Sidle in 1963 (1,006).

LSU was the biggest victim of Newton’s mix of bruise and blaze. He went for a season-high 217 rushing yards against the Tigers. Newton’s arm was at its best against South Carolina in the SEC Championship Game, which saw two touchdown strikes of 50-plus yards on the way to a season-high 335 passing yards and 4 TDs.

No type of adversity was going to derail Newton’s season, not even a 24-0 hole at No. 9 Alabama.

The Malzahn-Newton marriage wasn’t too different than the one at Florida, and Newton was on the Gators’ sidelines to witness that first hand.

Alongside Urban Meyer in 2007, Tim Tebow put together a Heisman season that was better in many ways statistically than Newton’s. However, Tebow can’t trade his team’s 9-4 finish that year for the national title it earned the following year, which would make this a different discussion.

A similar case can be made for Manziel in 2012, when he won the Heisman during a magical 11-2 campaign. Johnny Football racked up almost 400 yards per game and was responsible for only four fewer TDs than Newton.

But again, this type of argument calls for multiple considerations, and everything we’ve illustrated factors into Newton getting the very slight edge over those legendary counterparts.

This debate, especially involving three seasons like that, is always fun so make sure to comment and make your case for which SEC QB had the best season in history.

Talal Elmasry

Born and raised in Gainesville, Talal joined SDS in 2015 after spending 2 years in Bristol as an ESPN researcher. Previously, Talal worked at The Gainesville Sun.