Yesterday afternoon during the SEC Championship game telecast, the highly biased announcers showed a statistical comparison between 2005 Vince Young and 2010 Cam Newton. The stat line appeared to favor Cam Newton — precisely what CBS wanted you to think. CBS has billions invested in the SEC, and Vern Lundquist and Gary Danielson will do everything in their power to make you think that the SEC is god’s gift to college football. That even the lowly bottom feeders of the SEC would win any other conference.
Well, the debate between Cam Newton and Vince Young isn’t nearly as laughable as most SEC/CBS propaganda, but it’s still humorous how clear cut Gary Danielson made it out to be. First of all, the statistic was misleading since it failed to show that Vince Young only played in 3 4th quarters during 2005, whereas Newton has played in all but 2 4th quarters. Newton accumulated an additional 6 passing touchdowns and 2 rushing touchdowns during his 4th quarter appearances. Vince Young had 1 passing touchdown @ #4 Ohio State, and 2 rushing touchdowns V #1 Southern California in the Nat’l Championship game.
What would Young’s statistics have looked like in 2005 if he had been coached by a coach who is known to run up the score? What if 2005 Texas had been coached by Urban Meyer or Bob Stoops? Vince Young probably would have had an additional 1,000 yards passing, 5-10 additional passing tds, with 500+ additional rushing yards and 5-10 rushing touchdowns.
Anyone who watched Vince Young play college football knew that there were two Vince Youngs. Regular Vince Young — who was still elite — and Big Game Vince Young. Cam Newton may be as good as, or even better than, regular Vince Young, but it remains to be seen if he is as good as “Big Game” Vince Young.
Vince Young saved his best for big games, where his teammates relied on him 100%.
Young first showed what he could do V 2004 Michigan in the 2005 Rose Bowl. Young was absolutely unstoppable vs the Wolverines, accounting for all of Texas’ 5 touchdowns, with 180 yds passing 1 td, and 192 rushing 4 tds.
The following season, Vince Young started right where he left off when #2 Texas went to Columbus, OH to face the #4 Ohio State Buckeyes. Texas found itself in serious trouble at the ‘Shoe deep into the 4th quarter when Vince Young marched the Horns down the field and flicked a perfect pass to the corner of the endzone to Limas Sweed for the go ahead touchdown. That was the last time in 2005 that Texas and Vince Young were seriously threatened by a team in the regular season. (Texas did find itself down big at half @ Oklahoma State, but 35 unanswered points later — it wasn’t even close.)
Vince Young’s 2006 Rose Bowl - National Championship performance will likely never be rivaled. Not by Cam Newton, and probably not by anyone. As good as Cam Newton is, 2010 Oregon is just nowhere near as good as 2005 Southern California.
It amuses me that Gary Danielson and CBS forget Young’s 4th quarter comeback against USC. That clutch performance by Vince Young to lead his team to victory over the 2 time defending Nat’l Champions, who had won 34 straight, is bar none the best performance in college football history. For Gary Danielson and CBS to think that pure black/white statistics beat out actual performance is absolutely laughable. Then again, Danielson, Lundquist, and CBS have tried to shove down our throat for years that Tim Tebow, and his gimmick 1 yd touchdowns, is the best player in NCAA history.
So what could Cameron Newton possibly do to beat out 2005 Vince Young? In my opinion it’s nearly impossible, since Newton isn’t facing a team of 2005 USC’s caliber. He has played a weaker schedule to this point, and has appeared in 7 more 4th quarters than Vince Young did.
2005 Vince Young was more than just numbers — he was an unstoppable machine that willed his team to victory and refused to lose. That is why Cameron Newton will have a very difficult time rivaling what Vince Young did in 2005.
