Newton a tougher task than Tebow?

Saturday will not be the first time Brandon Boykin has faced off against Cameron Newton. When Boykin was a junior at Fayette County High School, Newton was the senior quarterback at Westlake.

“And they beat the crap out of us,” Boykin said. “But we got them back in basketball. He’s just a great athlete. He played everything. He was the man in everything. It’s not surprising what he’s doing. We’re not gonna be hometown friends, or whatever you wanna call it, this week.”

Georgia’s defensive players may have thought they had seen the last of big and athletic quarterbacks when Tim Tebow left Florida. But in Auburn’s Newton, they may be seeing an even better version.

“A lot of people compare him to Tim Tebow. But the way he moves, you can tell he moves a lot more fluidly than Tebow did,” Bulldog defensive end Demarcus Dobbs said. “And he’s bigger than Tebow was. For a guy that size, that height and that weight to move like he does, it’s something that people can’t really mimic.”

Not that the Bulldogs won’t try.

Boykin said the team has a new player, whose name he couldn’t remember, who could mimic Newton. (There aren’t any new quarterbacks listed on the team’s roster. Boykin said he was a non-freshman who recently joined the team.)

“He’s just like Tebow, he’s like the same size and he runs people over and stuff,” Boykin said. “He’s pretty athletic, so he’ll probably be Cam the rest of the week. So it’ll be interesting.”

(OK insiders and people with friends on the team: You’re on the clock. Find out who the mystery player is.)

Back to Newton.

Boykin said the key was keeping Newton from getting out of the pocket, where he could run and pass it.

“Running-wise he’s probably about the same (as Tebow),” Boykin said. “But I’d say that Cameron has a lot stronger arm, and just the way he makes people miss; he can scramble around the pocket for five or six seconds. And that’s tough to cover, when you’re trying to cover someone that long. So it’s going to be a tough task. But I think if defensive-wise we can get a good rush and contain him and keep him in the pocket I think we can have a chance.”

Dobbs said he was excited about the chance to play a Heisman Trophy contender, pointing out that a good game against one “will always look good on your resume’.” But he added that it was a “big task on our hands.”

At one point, Dobbs said the way they had to look at trying to stop Newton is: “He puts on his pants the same way I do.”

But when he does, does he make gold records?

(If you don’t catch the reference, please go here.)