It may not have had College Football Playoff implications or made waves in the national polls, but Howard’s surprising win over UNLV during Week 1 was the shocker of all shockers in the southern Nevada desert for no other reason than the fact that it was the greatest point spread upset in college football history according to local sports books.
At the heart of the improbable victory was a quarterback with a familiar last name: true freshman Caylin Newton, who had 21 carries for 190 yards and two touchdowns (plus another 140 yards passing) in the 43-40 win over the Rebels. As many came to find out, the Bison signal-caller is also the younger brother of Carolina Panthers QB and former Auburn great Cam Newton. Naturally the recent NFL MVP was asked about the latest star in the family this week and managed to even land a little dig in at an SEC rival while praising his brother.
“I was teasing Thomas (Davis), I said man listen, Georgia needs a winner. And every Newton I know is a winner. They missed out on yet another one,” Newton said during his Tuesday press conference. “He has that ‘It’ factor to have guys follow him. That’s what you want in your quarterback.”
The elder Newton spoke for several minutes about the journey Caylin has been on from an under-recruited player to leading a historically black college to such a huge upset and appearing on SportsCenter. It won’t exactly be an upset if Cam manages a win against the San Francisco 49ers in the Panthers’ opener on Sunday but he will certainly have a hard time living up to the standard set on the field by the other quarterback in the family last week.