The greatest player in Carolina Panthers history is also the greatest player in the last 25 years of college football history.
Bruce Feldman of The Athletic, in an article just published on Tuesday, ranked college football’s top 25 players of the 2000s. Coming in at No. 1 is former Panthers quarterback and Auburn University legend Cam Newton.
Feldman writes:
He was college football’s Superman. He spent only one year at Auburn, transferring from Blinn College in Texas after starting his career at Florida, but it was the most remarkable single season by a major college quarterback in the history of the sport — enough to put him atop this list.
The towering 6-5, 250-pound Newton ran through the hardest conference in college football, leading the Tigers to a 14-0 record. The most remarkable detail of Newton’s dominance that year was he led Gene Chizik’s Auburn squad — ranked No. 23 in the preseason — to a perfect record and did it shouldering a load unlike any other national champion QB we’ve ever seen. He didn’t have a single skill player drafted. Only tackles Brandon Mosley (fourth round) and Lee Ziemba (seventh round) were picked on the O-line. The entire starting defense had only two players drafted.
That magical season saw Newton pass for 2,908 yards and 30 touchdowns and run for 1,473 yards and 20 more scores. His efforts would result in a landslide victory of the 2010 Heisman Trophy, the claim to that year’s national title and the honor of being selected with the No. 1 overall pick of the 2011 NFL draft.
Newton is joined on Feldman’s list by two other Panthers greats—Stanford University running back Christian McCaffrey (No. 17) and University of North Carolina defensive end Julius Peppers (No. 19).
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Publish date : 2025-05-20 16:25:00
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