Cam Newton Wins Heisman Trophy

Quarterback Cam Newton has won the Heisman Trophy after a season in which he played brilliantly but was also the focus of an NCAA investigation.

“Honestly, it’s a dream come true for me, something every child has a dream that plays the sport of football, and I’m living testimony that anything is possible,” Newton said.

Newton, the third player from Auburn to win the Heisman, received 729 first-place votes and outpointed runner-up Andrew Luck of Stanford by 1,184 points.

Oregon running back LaMichael James was third, followed by Boise State quarterback Kellen Moore, the other finalist.

Even Newton didn’t look all that surprised when his name was announced. A wide smile spread across his face and he dropped his head.

After exchanging hugs and handshakes with the other finalists, he and his mother, Jackie, shared a long embrace.

When he reached the podium, he had to steady himself.

“Oh my God,” he whispered as he reached into his inside jacket packet to pull out his speech. “Oh My God.”

The path has not been easy, on or off the field. Questions of Newton’s eligibility and amateur status have dogged him for weeks now. The Auburn Tigers have battled through an unusually deep SEC West. But an undefeated regular season, an SEC Championship, and a handful of broken records speak for themselves, to say nothing of the Walter Camp, Maxwell, and Davey O’Brien Awards.

Cam “Cameron” Newton is the most outstanding player in Division I-A college football.

Here are the numbers to prove it:

2,589 passing yards (10.5 yards per attempt), 28 touchdowns, six interceptions
•    1,409 rushing yards (5.8 yards per carry), 20 touchdowns
•    199.2 passing yards per game, 108.4 rushing yards per game, 3.77 touchdowns accounted for per game
•    3,998 yards of total offense, 307.5 yards of total offense per game, 61.8% of team’s total offense
•    8.2 yards per play
•    Best game: 17-for-28 for 335 passing yards and four touchdowns, 14 carries for 73 yards and two touchdowns in SEC Championship Game against South Carolina
•    13-0 team record, SEC Championship, BCS National Championship Game berth

There really wasn’t much question going into Saturday’s Heisman Trophy ceremony that Cam Newton was going to win the hardware. The only question was whether by Cecil Newton’s admission that he tried to get Mississippi State to pay for Cam Newton’s services. The NCAA has found nothing to link Cam Newton to the pay-for-play scheme.

And despite an impressive winning margin by Newton, it looks like he was brought down a little bit by the questions.

Newton won every region and garnered 93 percent of the first-place votes among those who put him on the ballot. But therein lies one of the catches, and the apparent fallout from the recruitment questions following Newton: 105 of the 886 ballots returned left the Auburn quarterback off entirely.