Cameron Newton's NFL Prospects: Are We Sure He Is Even That Good?

There is no denying that former Auburn quarterback Cameron Newton turned in a fantastic 2010 college football season, one well deserving of a Heisman Trophy. In his 14 games this season, Newton completed 66.1 percent of his passes, gained an extraordinary 10.2 yards per pass attempt, and threw 30 touchdown passes (10.7 touchdown percentage) to only seven interceptions (2.5 interception percentage). For good measure, Newton also had 264 rush attempts for 1,473 rush yards and a 5.6 yards per rush average that is made more impressive when one remembers that sacks in college count against a quarterback's rush totals.

Newton's fine quarterback play was the main reason why Auburn's offense was so incredibly dominant this season and ended up winning the BCS title. However, one great season in college football is never good enough for anyone to definitively say a quarterback will be a good pro because it fails to eliminate question marks about a player's true talent.

Having one excellent season as a college quarterback is no great feat as plenty of quarterbacks before Newton have done it and most have gone on to either fade into football obscurity or football mediocrity.

Alabama quarterback Greg McElroy in 2009, his first season as Alabama's primary quarterback, which is attempting the most passes or throwing the most passing yards for his team, completed 60.2 percent of his passes, gained 7.7 yards per pass attempt, and threw 17 touchdowns (5.2 touchdown percentage) to four interceptions (1.2 interception percentage). Alabama won a BCS title with McElroy as a quarterback, but his first season as a starter was nothing extraordinary.

Just this past season, however, McElroy improved dramatically, completing 70.9 percent of his passes, gaining 9.5 yards per pass attempt, and throwing 20 touchdowns (6.4 touchdown percentage) to five interceptions (1.6 interception percentage). McElroy's season was every bit as great as Newton's, and yet no one is talking about him as a top quarterback prospect because there is no certainty about which season is more representative of his ability. McElroy is just one quarterback who put together a great season.

Southern Methodist sophomore quarterback Kyle Padron exploded on the college football scene last season as a freshman. Over the last seven games of 2009, Padron completed 67.2 percent of his passes, gained 9.6 yards per pass attempt, and threw 10 touchdowns (5.0 touchdown percentage) to 4 interceptions (2.0 interception percentage).

In the season that just ended, Padron's numbers fell off precipitously, and he completed only 59.4 percent of his passes, gained just 7.5 yards per pass attempt, and threw 31 touchdowns (6.1 touchdown percentage) to 14 interceptions (2.8 interception percentage). Think how foolish it would have been if after Padron's freshman campaign, which was every bit as good as Newton's 2010 season, we would have anointed him as a top quarterback prospect. Padron's one excellent season now does not seem indicative of his true talent.

Current Carolina Panthers quarterback and former Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen also had one excellent college football season. In his junior year, which turned out to be his last collegiate season, Clausen completed 68.0 percent of his passes, gained 8.8 yards per pass attempt, and threw 28 touchdowns (6.6 touchdown percentage) to four interceptions (.9 interception percentage).

Clausen's extremely efficient junior season came out of nowhere based on the fact he was a below average to average passer in his other two seasons at Notre Dame. His freshman season, in games as Notre Dame's primary quarterback, Clausen completed 58.0 percent of his passes, gained a pathetic 5.3 yards per pass attempt, and threw seven touchdown passes (5.5 touchdown percentage) to four interceptions (3.1 interception percentage).

Clausen's sophomore effort was little better as he completed 60.9 percent of his passes, gained 7.2 yards per pass attempt, and threw 25 touchdowns (5.7 touchdown percentage) to 17 interceptions (3.9 interception percentage).

Before Clausen's excellent junior season, he had spent more time being a mediocre quarterback, but that still did not keep him from being great for one magical season.

Despite Clausen's impressive junior season at Notre Dame, based on his play this season for the Panthers, when it looked most of the times as if he had never played quarterback before in his life, it is obvious Clausen has more mediocrity in him than excellence.

Former Oakland Raiders quarterback and former LSU quarterback JaMarcus Russell, who many consider as the biggest draft bust in NFL history although he never should have been selected so highly in the first place, also had one great season as a college football quarterback. His junior season was one in which he completed 67.8 percent of his passes, gained 9.2 yards per pass attempt, and threw 28 touchdowns (8.2 touchdown percentage) to eight interceptions (2.3 interception percentage). Again, that season is comparable to Newton's 2010 year.

Russell, however, was not nearly so good in his other two seasons as LSU's primary quarterback. In his freshman season, Russell was pretty awful, as he completed a lousy 50.3 percent of his passes, gained 7.5 yards per pass attempt, and threw nine touchdowns (7.0 touchdown percentage) to two interceptions (1.6 interception percentage).

Russell's sophomore season was better than his freshman one, but still not one that even whispered that here is a future star NFL quarterback. In 2005, Russell completed only 60.5 percent of his passes, gained 7.9 yards per pass attempt, and threw 15 touchdowns (4.8 touchdown percentage) to nine interceptions (2.9 interception percentage).

Once again, Russell's college career proves that even a quarterback who is average at best in his other seasons can put it all together for one great season.

Current Philadelphia Eagles quarterback and former University of Houston quarterback Kevin Kolb is another quarterback whose ordinary seasons did not prevent him from having one great year.

Kolb spent the first three seasons of his collegiate career displaying middling accuracy. As a freshman, Kolb completed 60.9 percent of his passes, gained 8.7 yards per pass attempt, and threw 25 touchdowns (7.0 touchdown percentage) to six interceptions (1.7 interception percentage). For his sophomore year, Kolb's completion percentage dropped to 56.1 percent, he gained 7.8 yards per pass attempt, and threw 11 touchdowns (3.1 touchdown percentage) to six interceptions (1.7 interception percentage). As a junior, Kolb completed 60.5 percent of his passes, gained 7.8 yards per pass attempt, and threw 19 touchdowns (4.5 touchdown percentage) to 15 interceptions (3.6 interception percentage).

While none of Kolb's first three college seasons were anything other than average, he still managed to have one great college football season.

If those examples are not enough to convince you of how unimportant having just one great college football season is in determining how good of a quarterback a player really is, ask Mark Sanchez and the New York Jets if they would not both be better off had Sanchez spent another year at USC honing his quarterback craft.

In Sanchez's one year as a starting quarterback in college, he had an extremely effective season, completing 65.8 percent of his passes, gaining 8.8 yards per attempt, and throwing 34 touchdowns (9.3 touchdown percentage) to 10 interceptions (2.7 interception percentage).

Since that year, in his two seasons as the New York Jets starting quarterback, Sanchez has not come within a marathon's worth of miles of matching any of those college statistics for an extended period of time, and has actually been one of the worst passing quarterbacks in the NFL.

If you look at the college careers of the current elite crop of quarterbacks, be it Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, Philip Rivers, or Drew Brees, you will find quarterbacks who started at least two years in college and put together consistently excellent seasons with no great difference between any two seasons. What you will not find is just one great season with no other seasons of equal production to back it up.

Not only does Newton only have one year of starting experience, but he was only asked to throw 20 passes per game, 280 pass attempts over 14 games, during that one year so he does not even have the experience of truly carrying an offense with his arm; those 280 pass attempts are the epitome of a sample size that is too small to gauge a college quarterback's pro prospects. No NFL team is going to have great success throwing only 20 times a game, which is all Newton is familiar with.

In addition, there were slight negative correlations between Newton's number of pass attempts and his completion percentage (-0.122) and also his number of pass attempts and his yards per pass attempt (-0.208) so there is some evidence that the more times Newton was asked to throw, the worse he got as a quarterback.

For all of his athletic ability, Newton is not special enough that he should not be examined less rigorously as a quarterback simply because he won a Heisman Trophy and a national championship in the same year or because he is 6'6 and has a very strong arm. Under such rigorous examination, the only thing that can surely be said about Newton is no one knows how good a quarterback he really is.

NFL franchises should never draft a quarterback, let alone using a high draft pick on one, based mostly on a player's potential; leave drafting mostly on potential to the NBA. Instead an NFL team should know exactly what kind of quarterback they will be getting. With Newton, that level of certainty is an impossibility, rendering him unworthy of a high draft pick.

Auburn Tigers Will Win BCS Title And Here Is Why

Most would agree that the Auburn Tigers and the Oregon Ducks are the two best college football teams in the nation. Yet, besides just knowing these two teams are the best, it is also worthwhile to take a truly comprehensive look at just how dominant these teams have been in their games and which team has been more dominant than the other. By dominant, what I mean is how well each team performed against their opponents in comparison to how well their opponents played in every other game besides the ones where they were facing Oregon or Auburn; in simpler terms, it is gauging how poorly a team makes its opponents play.

On the offensive side of the ball, Oregon completed 62.1 percent of their passes, gained 7.9 yards per pass attempt and 8.7 adjusted yards per attempt, averaged 6.1 yards per rush, accumulated 12.7 yards per completion, had an 8.2 touchdown percentage and a 2.0 interception percentage, and were sacked on 1.9 percent of their pass attempts.

In every game besides the ones in which they played Oregon, Oregon's opponents allowed their opponents to complete 59.5 percent of their passes, gain 7.2 yards per pass attempt and 6.8 adjusted yards per pass attempt, average 4.4 yards per rush, accumulate 12.0 yards per completion, post a 5.1 touchdown percentage and 3.0 interception percentage, score 49.3 points per game, and they sacked opposing quarterbacks on 6.7 percent of their pass attempts.

That means that when facing Oregon, due to the Ducks' high-powered offensive attack, teams allowed a 4.4 percent higher completion percentage, 9.7 percent more yards per pass attempt, 27.9 percent more adjusted yards per pass attempt, 38.6 percent more yards per rush, 5.8 percent more yards per completion, a 60.8 percent higher touchdown percentage, and 84.0 percent more points per game. Oregon's opponents were also 33.3 percent less likely to intercept a pass from an Oregon quarterback and 77.6 percent less likely to sack an Oregon quarterback than they were to intercept and sack a quarterback in other games.

There are a couple of things that should immediately jump out at you after looking at these statistics. The first is how much the Oregon offense relies upon their vaunted rushing attack led by LaMichael James. They depend on their ground game's domination much more than they do upon quarterback Darren Thomas' ability to throw the ball efficiently.

The second noteworthy conclusion to draw is that Thomas is not the kind of quarterback who should strike great fear in the hearts of any defense. In terms of passing accuracy and value of his passes as measured by yards per pass attempt and yards per completion, Thomas is really not that much better than any other quarterback Oregon's opponents have faced. Actually, Thomas has only completed 60.7 percent of his passes, which is not indicative of an elite quarterbacking talent.

Where Thomas is dangerous as a passer is in his knack for throwing a high number of touchdown passes relative to his pass attempts and barely throwing any interceptions. He is also virtually impossible to sack.

If Auburn wants to shut down Oregon's offense, the Tigers should do all they can to make Thomas beat them with his arm. It is unlikely he would be able to do so.

As dominant as Oregon has been on offense this season, what Auburn has put together on offense makes Oregon's look almost pedestrian in comparison. During games against Auburn, Auburn's opponents allowed a 18.5 percent higher completion percentage (66.7 percent to 56.3 percent), 50.0 percent more yards per attempt (10.5 to 7.0), 85.7 percent more adjusted yards per pass attempt (11.7 to 6.3), 67.6 percent more yards per rush (6.2 to 3.7), a 141.3 percent higher touchdown percentage (11.1 percent to 4.6 percent), 37.8 percent lower interception percentage (2.3 percent to 3.7 percent), and 85.7 percent more points per game (42.7 to 23.0) than in games where they faced anyone else. Auburn quarterbacks, however, were 1.4 percent more likely to be sacked than other quarterbacks.

Not only has the Auburn offense been more dominant than Oregon's offense in every category except interception percentage, but it is also a harder one to stop because the Tigers can run and pass at almost the same dominant level. Unlike Oregon where there is a pretty sizable drop-off between their proficiency in running the ball and passing, Auburn experiences no such difficulties.

Try to bottle up Auburn's rushing game and Cam Newton and his receivers will just hurt you with big pass plays. Focus solely on stopping the big pass play and Auburn will just run the ball at will.

Despite the Herculean task stopping Auburn's offense is, Oregon's defense will be charged with just that task Monday night, and the defense should be able to keep Auburn from running and passing roughshod over it and completely embarrassing it. Although Oregon's offense is the one getting all the publicity, Oregon's defense has been equally dominant, if not more so.

Compared to how opposing offenses performed against Oregon as opposed to the other teams on their schedules, they experienced a 10.4 percent decrease in completion percentage (59.7 percent to 53.5 percent), 19.7 percent decrease in yards per pass attempt (7.1 to 5.4), 38.2 percent decrease in adjusted yards per pass attempt (6.8 to 4.2), 10.9 percent decrease in yards per completion (11.9 to 10.6), 21.4 percent decrease in yards per rush (4.2 to 3.3), 44.2 percent decrease in touchdown percentage (5.2 percent to 2.9 percent), 46.7 percent increase in interception percentage (3.0 percent to 4.4 percent), 4.5 percent decrease in sack percentage (6.7 percent to 6.4 percent), and 46.2 percent decrease in points scored per game (26.6 to 18.4).

As you can see, the Oregon defense is equally adept at stopping opponents' rushing and passing attacks as long as you do not expect them to sack the quarterback. However, even with their excellent defensive statistics, if they play in the same dominating fashion against Auburn, Auburn's offense is still potent enough to move the ball well enough to score points.

Auburn's defense, too, has seen its opponents struggle to move the ball against them although they have been not nearly so outstanding as the Oregon defense. Still, Auburn's opponents underwent a 12.7 percent decrease in yards per pass attempt (7.9 to 6.9), 9.2 percent decrease in adjusted yards per pass attempt (7.6 to 6.9), a 15.4 percent decrease in yards per reception (13.0 to 11.0), 16.9 percent decrease in touchdown percentage (5.9 percent to 4.9 percent), 12.1 percent increase in sack percentage (5.8 percent to 6.5 percent), and 20.7 percent decrease in points per game (30.9 to 24.5) compared to their statistics in all other games.

On the other hand, opposing quarterbacks have experienced a 2.8 increase in completion percentage (61.0 percent to 62.7 percent) and a 36.4 percent decrease in interception percentage (3.3 percent to 2.1 percent) relative to their performances in other games. If there is going to be an interception thrown in the game, it is much more likely to be thrown by Cam Newton than Darren Thomas.

Auburn's defense's greatest strength is in its ability to stop the run, which will come in handy since Oregon's offense's greatest strength is running the ball. Where Auburn is susceptible on defense is when the Tigers are called upon to defend the pass, which should surprise no one who has watched any of their games. Luckily for Auburn, where they are weaker is also where Oregon's offense is weaker.

The matchup between Auburn's defense and Oregon's offense will pit strength against strength and weakness against weakness and Auburn's defense is a lot more equipped to stop Oregon's offense than Oregon's defense is to stop Auburn's offense.

So far, Oregon and Auburn have been compared as if they both faced competition of equal ability, but that is not the case. With only two exceptions, Oregon's opponents' defenses were better at containing yards per completion (12.0 to 12.4) and Oregon's opponents' offenses were better at avoiding interceptions (3.0 interception percentage to 3.3 interception percentage), Auburn faced a better quality of opponent. Therefore, the two team's statistics have to be adjusted in order to determine how they compare to each other on an equal level.

After the adjustment, the advantage Auburn already has on offense becomes even more pronounced. They increase their already superior dominance over Oregon's offense in completion percentage, yards per attempt, adjusted yards per attempt, yards per completion, yards per rush, touchdown percentage, interception percentage, and points. There are not enough compliments that can be heaped upon the Auburn offense to describe how incredible their production has been this season.

Oregon's offense is still much better at avoiding sacks, but that one advantage is nothing compared to Auburn's multiple ones.

Defensively after making the adjustments, it is Oregon who has proven themselves more adept than Auburn at stopping opponents. Oregon's defense has been a lot better than Auburn's defense in yards per pass attempt allowed, adjusted yards per pass attempt allowed, completion percentage allowed, touchdown percentage allowed, interception percentage, and points allowed.

It is not all bad news for Auburn's defense, though. The Tigers' defense is better than Oregon's defense in yards per completion allowed and sack percentage and equal to Oregon in stopping the run.

The advantage Oregon holds on defense, however, does not mean as much as the advantage that Auburn holds on offense because Oregon is just proving themselves to be better than the weaker part of Auburn's team. Auburn is even better by a vast margin than the stronger part of Oregon's team.

Plus the Oregon defense will not be playing against the Auburn defense; it will be facing the Auburn offense that has shown itself to be nonpareil this season as they have put up amazing numbers against what were otherwise stingy defenses. As dominant as Oregon's defense has shown itself to be even after the adjustments for quality of opponent, Auburn's offense is more unstoppable. It will be asking too much to expect Oregon's defense to contain Auburn as much as it will need to for the Ducks to emerge victorious.

On the other hand, it will not be asking too much for Auburn's defense to contain Oregon's offense since Oregon's offense is fairly one-dimensional and will not be able to effectively attack Auburn's defense where it is weakest; namely, against the pass.

When the Auburn Tigers square off against the Oregon Ducks Monday night, because of their extremely dominant offense, they will have the best unit on the field on either side of the ball and that should be enough for the Tigers to win the game.