Junior Kyle Newhall-Caballero is in his first season as the starting quarterback for Brown and has led the high-powered offense to yet another great season. Coming into Saturday’s contest, Brown ranks second in the Ivy League in scoring, averaging 25.2 points per game.
In addition, Newhall-Caballero leads the conference in touchdowns and average passing yards per game, with almost 90 more than the next closest passer. During Newhall-Caballero’s first two seasons on the team, Michael Dougherty was starting quarterback, and Newhall-Caballero learned behind the clipboard. Dougherty graduated in 2009, giving Newhall-Caballero the chance to start, an opportunity of which he took full advantage.
He has led the Bears to a 6-3 record, including 4-2 in the Ancient Eight. His season has been highlighted by a 34-31 win over Holy Cross, ranked No. 19 in the nation. Newhall-Caballero was named Ivy League Offensive Player of the Week for his effort in the win as he set the record for Ivy League completions in a game, with 46 on 61 attempts. He beat the previous record of 44 completions set by another Brown quarterback, Kyle Slager, in a 2002 loss against Rhode Island.
Newhall-Caballero’s achievement is made more impressive because of his collegiate debut in the 2009 season opener, a 21-20 heartbreaker to Stony Brook. His record-setting performance against Holy Cross was only his fourth career start. He has also been selected as the New England Football Writers Gold Helmet Award winner as the most outstanding player in New England and was named a College Sporting News national all-star for his role in Brown’s win against Holy Cross.
Although Newhall-Caballero makes his job look effortless on the field, he is quick to point out that it takes a lot of work behind the scenes for the offense to run smoothly on gameday.
“It took a lot of hard work to earn the starting QB job,” said Newhall-Caballero, who added that he worked hard “to get prepared physically” and that he “studied to get ready mentally.” After his performance in Brown’s game against Yale on Nov. 10, Newhall-Caballero moved into 21st place in the Ivy record book with 201 completions this season, eighth best in Brown football history. He also now ranks second in the nation in passing with 26.25 completions per game.
In addition, Newhall-Caballero will be attempting to lead the Bears to a seven win season for the 29th time in the history of the Brown football program, and the 11th time since 1950. Brown, which shared the Ivy title in 2008 with Harvard, has lost both of its Ivy games this season to league leaders Harvard and Penn by a combined 10 points.
Newhall-Caballero originally hails from Gilbert, Ariz. and has been playing football since seventh grade. He said that he chose Brown not only because of the interest the university showed towards him but also because he had a “good feeling” that Brown was where he wanted to be. Newhall-Caballero recalls that during his visit to the school he “liked the coaches and enjoyed being around the guys on the football team.”
Newhall-Caballero believes that his team has had a strong season thus far, although its members haven’t accomplished everything they set out to do.
“Our season is not over and we have a lot to look forward to,” Newhall-Caballero said. “Columbia is a good team and it will be the last time we will ever have a chance to play alongside the seniors on our team. We want to go out and help them play Brown football one more time.”
The Bears (6-3, 4-2 Ivy) will play Columbia (3-6, 2-4 Ivy) on Nov. 21 at Robert K. Kraft Field.
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