New At Rivals: Corn Dogs--Fried, Broiled and Blackened

Here's a link to my post-game column for the LSU game, as posted at Rivals' AuburnSports.com.  A preview:

Another week, another win, another eye-popping, record-shattering, jaw-on-the ground day from one Cameron Jerrelle Newton.

It's gotten to the point where just about every sports guy on television and in print is making jokes about how hard it is to find new ways to describe just how amazing this guy is on the football field.

Newton will be the first to tell you--or anybody else--that he doesn't do it alone. When asked after the LSU game about his 54-yard touchdown scamper, one of the most amazing displays of broken-field running I have ever seen, Newton called it "a great example of blocking" on the parts of his teammates.

Newton was being thoroughly modest in that particular case, but he was entirely in the right to point out how tough Auburn has been on the offensive line and in up-field blocking from the receivers. LSU's famed defensive lineman Drake Nevis was almost completely shut down, logging only two tackles. All-everything cornerback Patrick Peterson was almost as unproductive, notching three stops, and was unable to catch either Newton or Onterrio McCalebb on their long scoring runs.

But still. You're talking about a guy who could meet Kelvin Sheppard, a senior three-year starting linebacker in what was touted as the nation's best defense, at the one yard line... and pancake him for a touchdown. This is not normal behavior.

Look, it's time to say it: there's never been anything like this guy in modern football. The closest analogue is of course Tim Tebow, but Tebow didn't have anything like Newton's speed and elusiveness, and I suspect Newton also has a stronger throwing arm. While there's a marked trend today towards dual-threat quarterbacks, I'm guessing that in twenty years we'll look back at Newton the way we look at Bo Jackson and Herschel Walker today: an unearthly talent the likes of which appears once or twice in a generation--if you're lucky.

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