There’s one name that pops immediately into your head when you think of great Auburn quarterbacks over the years. In fact, his name still gets mentioned in the conversation about best individual seasons in college football history.
But Auburn football has produced other elite quarterbacks over the years, too. With Monday being Auburn’s time to shine during the “SEC Network Takeover” series, we thought it would be a good time to look at the 4 best quarterbacks ever to make their way across The Plains.
This is the third installment of our QB Mount Rushmore series. You can find the schools we’ve covered listed below:
Florida is up on Tuesday. But for now, let’s dive into Auburn’s Mount Rushmore of QBs:
Cam Newton (2010)
Any list of Auburn quarterbacks has to start with Cam Newton. What Newton did in 2010 while leading the Tigers to the national title was nothing short of incredible. It remains one of the best single-season performances by a college football quarterback to this day.
Newton won the 2010 Heisman Trophy by a wide margin, beating out Stanford’s Andrew Luck by nearly 1,200 points in the final vote.
Perhaps the most impressive feat in his Heisman-winning time on The Plains was “The Camback,” which took place in the 2010 Iron Bowl after Auburn fell behind rival Alabama 24-0 midway through the second quarter:
The final numbers for Newton’s 2010 season were huge: 2,854 passing yards, 30 passing TDs, 1,473 rushing yards, 20 rushing TDs. Oh, and he added 2 catches for 42 yards and a score, too. His per-attempt passing numbers were great: 10.2 yards/attempt, 15.4 yards/completion, 66.1% completion percentage.
Newton wasn’t the first Auburn QB to win the Heisman Trophy, though. That honor belongs to…
Pat Sullivan (1969-71)
Sullivan still sits atop the all-time Auburn leaderboard with 53 career TD passes. He added 18 rushing TDs to claim Auburn’s all-time career TDs responsible for record at 71.
He “only” threw for 2,012 yards and 20 touchdowns in his Heisman-winning 1971 campaign, but when you adjust for the era, it was an impressive total.
Sullivan led the Tigers to a 9-2 overall record in 1971. Auburn won each of its first 9 games before losing the Iron Bowl to Alabama and the Sugar Bowl to Oklahoma to close out the year.
When all was said and done, Sullivan held a few NCAA records at the end of his storied Auburn career. The fact that no Tigers in today’s modern era of offense have surpasses his career records speaks to just how good he was back in the late-1960s and early 1970s.
Jason Campbell (2001-04)
The 2004 Auburn Tigers were one of the greatest Auburn teams of all-time. That year, the Tigers went 13-0, winning the SEC Championship Game over Tennessee and beating Virginia Tech in the Sugar Bowl.
The only thing that slowed down Jason Campbell and company that year? The BCS computers. Auburn finished the regular season ranked No. 3 in the nation, behind No. 1 USC and No. 2 Oklahoma. Both the Trojans and Sooners also entered the postseason undefeated. Auburn remains one of the biggest “what-ifs” in the entire BCS era.
But that doesn’t take away from what Campbell did that year. He threw for 2,700 yards and 20 touchdowns, while adding 3 scores as a runner. Huge numbers? Not exactly. But he did exactly what Auburn needed him to do in order to keep winning games.
He was then selected in Round 1 of the 2005 NFL Draft based on his strong 2004 campaign.
Nick Marshall (2013-14)
Marshall narrowly claims the final spot on Auburn’s Mount Rushmore for a few reasons. One, he was part of 2 of the most-iconic finishes in college football season.
He was the guy who threw the “Prayer at Jordan-Hare” that landed in Ricardo Louis’s hands after bouncing off a pair of Georgia defenders:
Two weeks later, Marshall led the Tigers from behind in the Iron Bowl against Alabama to tie the score at 28-28 with less than a minute left. We all know what happened next, as Alabama attempted a game-winning field goal, only to have Chris Davis return the kick to the Auburn end zone. Do we need to see the “Kick Six” ending again? We all know what happened, right?
Heck, it never gets old. Here it is again:
Imagine having the Prayer at Jordan-Hare, then the Kick Six, then an SEC Championship Game victory over Mizzou as a 3-game stretch. The Tigers then lost a heartbreaking national title game to Florida State, 34-31.
Marshall was at the heart of everything that Auburn team did, throwing for 1,976 yards and 14 touchdowns in 2013 to go with 1,068 rush yards and 12 scores. In 2014, he threw for 2,532 yards and 20 touchdowns while running for 798 yards and 11 scores.
That 2-year stretch remains one of the best in Auburn history. The 2013 SEC title is still the most-recent one for the Tigers.
Honorable Mentions: Dameyune Craig, Stan White
Adam is a daily fantasy sports (DFS) and sports betting expert. A 2012 graduate of the University of Missouri, Adam now covers all 16 SEC football teams. He is the director of DFS, evergreen and newsletter content across all Saturday Football brands.
