Meet the unheralded TE who beat Cam Newton for a juco MVP award

— -- Before he was an All-Pro leading the Carolina Panthers to the Super Bowl or a Heisman Trophy winner with the national champion Auburn Tigers, Cam Newton quarterbacked Blinn College to the 2009 NJCAA national championship.

But while Newton was the runaway 2010 Heisman winner and is expected to add this year's NFL MVP to his award collection on Saturday, he didn't earn top individual honors from his seven-team conference during his lone season at Blinn, a two-year school in Brenham, Texas. No, the Southwest Junior College Football Conference MVP in 2009 as selected by the league's coaches was Chase Ford -- and the tight end is still amazed by the honor.

"When they told me I had won MVP, I thought they were playing with me," said Ford, who had 32 catches for 545 receiving yards for Kilgore (Texas) College that year. "Cam and that whole Blinn team were so good. I was just trying to get an all-conference selection at tight end and I ended up winning MVP. I was like, 'Hey, I'll take it.' I got jabs from friends and family about how I won the MVP over Cam, but in all honestly, he should have won the MVP."

Ford said his MVP trophy is somewhere at his home in Corrigan, Texas, although he's not quite sure where. After winning the award, he transferred to Miami, where he caught 16 passes in two seasons. He signed as an undrafted free agent with the Philadelphia Eagles before joining the Minnesota Vikings from 2012 to 2015. He also spent time this season with the Baltimore Ravens but did not record any receptions.

"My journey hasn't been as nice as Cam's, I can definitely say that," said Ford, who has 34 catches for 391 yards and one touchdown at the NFL level. "I didn't get the catches and stats that I would have liked at Miami. I went the free-agent route after college, and it's been an experience. It's a little different when you go someplace and you're not sure if you're going to be there the next month or not."

Newton arrived at Blinn after transferring from Florida and before rising to stardom at Auburn. Ford's team faced Newton's once in 2009, with Kilgore losing to Blinn 31-21 at the neutral site of a high school in Bryan, Texas.

"I knew back then Cam was going to be good; he was doing some crazy stuff on the field," Ford said. "I'll never forget this one play where our defensive end beat the tackle and he was coming up and he hit Cam square in the back -- and this end wasn't small, he was a good 270. He hit him right dead in his back, and the only thing Cam did was take two steps forward and threw the ball 50 yards. Ever since then I was like, that dude over there has got something."

While the players from both teams ate the boxed lunches that had been delivered for the postgame meal, Ford had a chance to chat with Newton about football and life after junior college.

"I remember talking to him right after the game, and we both had good games, and he was like, 'Damn, I thought they were going to have to put me in to guard you,'" Ford said. "And I just told him, 'You would have had a hard time doing it too.'"

Kilgore head coach J.J. Eckert remembers the scene.

"You talk about two impressive-looking football players," Eckert said. "Cam is 6-5, 250 and could throw the ball a country mile, and Chase is 6-6, 260 and is as country as you can imagine, and they're just sitting there talking about different things."

It was the only interaction the two players ever had, although Ford would have liked the opportunity to catch passes from Newton.

"I was keeping an eye on where he went to college afterwards, and I was hoping to land at the same college he went to," Ford said. "It didn't work out that way, but it would have been fun to play with him. I've always wanted to have chance to talk to him and catch up since then, because he really seems like a great guy. He was a really good dude."

Ford said he will be watching Newton play in Super Bowl 50 and will be pulling for him, just as he has since they faced off on a Texas high school football field as junior college players more than six years ago.

"If anybody makes it from where we came from, you feel happy for them," Ford said. "He knows about it. He knows what that was like. You play with a lot of good talent, but guys just don't make it out of there. For a guy to make it out of there and do what he's done is special.

"After that game we played against him, I've been a fan of his ever since, from Auburn to Carolina. We came from the same conference, and to see him do what he's doing is great."