By DARREN EVERSON and BEN COHEN
WSJ
When Cameron Newton and Darron Thomas square off in college football's upcoming national-title game, everyone will be talking about the two quarterbacks' fleet feet, their accurate arms and their leadership abilities.
The one thing no one is discussing: They're both black.
As the Jan. 10 national-title showdown between Mr. Newton's Auburn Tigers and Mr. Thomas's Oregon Ducks approaches, it's gone virtually unmentioned how black quarterbacks have been the story of the 2010 season. Major-college teams have long had black quarterbacks, of course—Cornelius Greene of Ohio State, Dennis Franklin of Michigan and numerous others operated conservative, run-based offenses back in the 1970s. But never has the achievement level of black quarterbacks been so high.
Mr. Newton, a junior, won the Heisman Trophy, the sport's most-valuable-player award, in a landslide earlier this month. He's both the game's most feared runner—he's 6-foot-6 and 250 pounds—and its top-rated passer. Mr. Thomas, a redshirt sophomore in his first season as a starter, led the highest-scoring offense in major-college football (49 points per game).
It's hardly just them. In the six major conferences—the Atlantic Coast, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Pac-10 and Southeastern—six black quarterbacks were named first- or second-team all-conference. That's half of the spots. (A seventh, Michigan's Denard Robinson, was named Big Ten offensive player of the year.) This occurred even though black quarterbacks held less than a third of the 65 starting quarterback positions.
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