Cam Newton praises Georgia as a hotbed for high school football talent
Credit: AP
Cam Newton has played all over the South, but the Atlanta native stands strong for his home state when it comes to high school football.
Westlake High School’s former two-sport superstar raised Georgia high school football above the rest of the country on his show, “4th&1 with Cam Newton,” as he reacted to MaxPreps’ 2025 Preseason Top 100 rankings.
Georgia led the country with 16 of the top 100 high school football programs, beating out other — and larger — hotbed states known for high school talent.
California came in second with 15 of the top 100, followed by Texas and Florida with 13 each. Ohio finished fifth with five programs in the top 100.
“Just imagine if Georgia was as big as California, just imagine if Georgia was as big as Texas, just imagine if Georgia was as big as doggone Florida,” Newton said. “What would that look like?”
To Newton’s point, Georgia has a smaller population than the next four states behind it in the rankings. But, at least to Newton, that hasn’t stopped Georgia from providing next-level talent at every position.
“You want to go get a good lineman, you may want to go to the Midwest, but our fail-safe is Georgia,” Newton said. “You want to go get a quarterback, yeah, we’re going to go to California, yeah, we’re going to go to Texas, maybe Florida. But you can go to Georgia.
“You want an old, physical tight end? Yeah, we can go Midwest again, we can go to Texas again, maybe go up north to Maryland or something like that, but you can always come to Georgia.”
Every Georgia high school football program in MaxPreps’ 2025 Preseason Top 100
- No. 4 - Grayson
- No. 13 - Buford
- No. 22 - Milton
- No. 26 - Carrollton
- No. 28 - Douglas County
- No. 51 - North Cobb
- No. 55 - Collins Hill
- No. 63 - Langston Hughes
- No. 66 - Thomas County Central
- No. 68 - North Gwinnett
- No. 72 - Gainesville
- No. 75 - Lee County
- No. 86 - North Oconee
- No. 90 - Colquitt County
- No. 93 - Lowndes
- No. 95 - Rabun Gap-Nacoochee
Of note, Newton has played football in many of Georgia’s competing states. After leading Westlake to a region championship his junior year with over 3,100 total yards and 31 total touchdowns, Newton signed to play for the University of Florida.
He then transferred to Blinn College in Texas before finishing his career at Auburn. The former Heisman Trophy winner was drafted first overall by the Carolina Panthers, where he played in Charlotte, North Carolina, for a decade.
Newton isn’t even the most recent Georgia high school quarterback to go No. 1 overall in the NFL draft. That would be Cartersville’s Trevor Lawrence, picked first in 2021. A year later, Upson-Lee High School and UGA alum Travon Walker was drafted No. 1 overall.
Walker is one of 71 former UGA players in the NFL, tied for second in the country behind Alabama (73), according to InGame.com.
But Newton wasn’t focused only on football. He stretched his pro-Georgia argument across all sports.
“You want a good tennis player? You can go to Georgia, get you one of them. You want a good track runner? You can go to Georgia to get you one of them, too.”
Newton kept going, listing billiards, ping-pong, basketball, lacrosse, hockey, badminton, and even said Georgia was good for finding all-stars in the card game spades.
“When you’re talking about a pure athlete, no matter the sport, no matter the sport, you know in any sport who’s going to always have a representative there,” Newton said.
