Cam Newton calls Charlie Strong the 'unsung head coach' during his Florida days

Much has been made of the Florida run of excellence from 2006-08. Multiple documentaries have been produced chronicling that time, which featured Urban Meyer, Tim Tebow and a host of other superstars in college football.

But many of the stories miss one man who might have been as influential as anyone. Cam Newton, who spent some time at Florida briefly before ultimately going to junior college and then Auburn, pointed that out during a recent appearance on the Glory Daze podcast with Johnny Manziel.

“Talking to a guy like Charlie Strong, he was the unsung head coach,” Newton said. “You didn’t always necessarily have to go to Urb. But you’d go to Strong and he’s going to kick it to you straight.”

Managing a team of personalities like Florida had back then was no small feat. The egos were enormous, and mostly justified based on the play on the field.

Still, getting everything to click together was a real feat. And Newton credited Strong with much of that at Florida.

“He had so much relatability there, knew how to talk,” Newton said. “He was a black coach. He knew how to schmooze to get his point across and Urb was just the overseer so to speak.”

Newton pointed out that the combination of so many mega personalities often made things difficult in the locker room. But there was also a healthy air of respect around the program at the time, too.

“When you’ve got a full team full of a Cam, a Joe Haden, Tim Tebow, who’s probably the most polarizing player at that time,” Newton said. “Still to this day. The Percys, the Louis Murphys, the Major Wrights, Brandon Spikes, Pouncey twins. So much personality and everybody wants this, everybody wants the ball. You only got one ball and 11 go-getters. How do you manage that? Good luck.”

Somehow, Florida made it work. The Gators won a national championship in 2006. Tebow won the Heisman Trophy in a somewhat disappointing 2007 campaign. Then the Gators repeated as national champs in 2008.

Through all that, the talent kept increasing. Just about nobody could recruit like Urban Meyer.

“Like you’ve got Deonte Thompson, Carl Moore, Bubba Caldwell, Cornelius Ingram,” Newton said. “These guys were people and major pillars in my life that I saw and was like, ‘Oh yeah, he got this. Yeah, he like that.’ Everybody was a five-star.

“It was like, wait what? Man, pull up your tape, let me see your tape. Matter of fact, don’t worry about it, I’m going to go to Rivals and see. ‘Man, he really ain’t that good.’ That’s how we judged it.”

For Newton, what made that Florida squad so special was the respect level everyone had for each other. It wasn’t always, but it was enough to accomplish some serious things.

“And the thing about that time that I don’t necessarily know still exists in college now, or especially youth sports, we paid homage to those guys,” Newton said. “We wanted to gain their respect. And by doing that it was like, ‘Bro, we’ve got to whoop ’em.’

“If it ain’t no blood, it ain’t no fire. And after the game it was very contentious. There was still respect there. And depending on how you performed during that game, I respected the locker room knowing that every great team that I’ve been on, one thing was always true. The players ran the locker room.”