Cam Newton Puts Together a Heisman-Clinching Performance

There's never been a player like him in college football. Peyton Manning might be the best passing quarterback in modern history. Tim Tebow might be the best running quarterback to come along in this era. Both of those guys were in the Southeastern Conference.

However, no one has ever had the stellar combination of rushing and passing in the college game that Cameron Newton, another SEC QB, has turned in this season. That's why he deserves the Heisman Trophy.

The SEC and the NCAA quieted all the controversy surrounding whether Newton is still an amateur athlete by declaring him eligible for the SEC Championship Game today and the BCS National Championship next month. However, Cam himself silenced all of his critics by his performance on the field.

Newton and Auburn served notice that they are the best team in college football. Who can argue? After all, they play in the best league in the game.

Some say that the best SEC teams could beat the worst NFL teams. Yes, teams like Auburn and South Carolina, this year's participants in the SEC's title game, could probably beat the pro teams that will draft first in the spring.

Newton wasted no time in showing his superior talent on the field. With an excellent play fake and a 70-yard pass, he set his team up for its game-opening touchdown on the very first play from scrimmage.

At the end of the first quarter, Auburn led South Carolina, 21-7, and even The Head Ball Coach himself, Steve Spurrier, who won several of these SEC Championship Games when he was at Florida, had to know it was going to be an uphill climb to get close to the War Eagles the rest of the game. It was obvious that Carolina didn't have the horses to mount a comeback like Auburn did in the Iron Bowl against Alabama a week ago.

The Hail Mary pass at the end of the first half that put Auburn up 28-14 was a stroke of luck for Newton, but great players make their own luck. The fact that he got it into the end zone on the last play totally deflated a South Carolina team that had worked so hard to pull within a touchdown before halftime—a trademark of Spurrier teams. It was just too much Tiger talent for his Gamecocks to overcome.

The lead grew to 42-14 at the end of the third quarter, and the final tally was 56-17. Newton tied a SEC Championship Game record for touchdowns with six and could have had more. Auburn scored more than 50 points for a school-record sixth time this season. Newton was responsible for more TDs than nearly 100 entire college football teams this year.

Newton was carried onto the field by his teammates. He gave all glory to God and them in his first public comments in weeks.

Auburn entered the game with its first chance to play for a national championship since 1957. That one was vacated by NCAA probation and this one might be, too, if the Pay for Play scandal investigation turns up more culpability on the school's part.

Since 1957, Auburn has had two more undefeated seasons, one more in which they were on NCAA probation under Terry Bowden and weren't eligible for the title, and one under Tommy Tuberville in which they were unfairly kept out of the BCS title game by the voters. This time, the Tigers were determined not to let anything keep them from facing Oregon in Glendale in January.

Auburn's notorious and controversial trustee, Bobby Lowder, is at the center of an FBI bank fraud investigation that has already netted one of Lowder's associates at his failed Colonial Bank on illegal gambling and political bribery charges that have also resulted in the arrest of several state senators in Alabama. That investigation might very well cast a wide net that will include NCAA violations that may have been overheard on federally wiretapped conversations. That's how Logan Young was famously convicted in federal court in Memphis for buying players for Auburn's archrival, Alabama, from the days of Bear Bryant onward. 

For now, however, Auburn is the SEC champion. They will play for the BCS National Championship, a title that its conference has won more than any other. And their star player, Cam Newton, will win the Heisman Trophy. All of those are deserved honors that they won on the field.