Sports

Florida State OC Gus Malzahn Won’t Stop Comparing Quarterback Recruits To Cam Newton

#College Football
by
Former Auburn coach Gus Malzahn and Cam Newton

© John Reed/Imagn


In 2010, Cam Newton put together one, if not the best, individual season in college football history to lead the Auburn Tigers to a national championship.

Newton, a junior and first-year starter, completed 66.1 percent of his passes for 2,854 yards, 30 touchdowns and seven interceptions. Those are impressive numbers. But it’s when you see what he did with his legs that things become really ridiculous.

Newton also carried the ball 264 times for 1,473 yards (an average of 5.6 yards per carry) and 20 touchdowns. He won the Heisman Trophy, Maxwell Award, Walter Camp Award, and went No. 1 in the 2011 NFL Draft.

The architect behind that potent Auburn offense, then-offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn, eventually parlayed that success into head coaching jobs with Arkansas State, back at Auburn, and UCF, before finally finding himself at Florida State, where he’s currently the offensive coordinator.

Along the way, Malzahn has picked up a bad habit of telling all of his quarterbacks that they’re going to be the next Cam Newton.

Gus Malzahn Compared KJ Jefferson, Joey Gatewood, And DJ Lagway To Cam Newton

Malzahn and the Florida State coaching staff hosted Florida transfer DJ Lagway for an official visit over the weekend as they look to replace Thomas Castellanos, who exhausted his eligibility in 2025.

Lagway told Matt LaSerre of Warchant.com that he enjoyed the visit. But he particularly noted that Malzahn compared him to his former star pupil, Newton.

“They said they liked what they saw on film, and they wanted to meet me in person and come up here and check everything that Florida State had to offer,” Lagway said. “And I really did love it. It’s really nice up here. Excited for the relationship to continue to build.

“He said he seems some things, similarities to me and Cam Newton, so he had it cut up for me and stuff like that. We watched some ball, and that was probably my favorite part of the whole visit. Watching ball with Coach Malzahn and Coach Tuck and just seeing how I could fit in the offense, and I could see it really well.”

Lagway, a former five-star recruit in the 2024 class out of Texas, is far less mobile than Newton. In two season with the Gators, he carried the ball just 121 times for 237 yards, an average of 1.9 yards per carry.

But that’s no bother to Malzahn, who seemingly compares all of his quarterback recruits to Newton.

Auburn beat reporter Justin Hokanson pointed out on X that Malzahn previously compared former Auburn quarterback Joey Gatewood to Newton, and did the same with former UCF quarterback Joey Gatewood.

Gatewood ended up playing for four different schools over four years and transitioning to tight end, while Jefferson started just five games for Malzahn at UCF in 2024 and went undrafted.

Safe to say, there will never be another Cam Newton. And Malzahn should probably stop telling recruits that they can duplicate Newton’s incredible success.