Until this season, Josh “Fig” Newton had never been part of a winning college football team.
In 2018, he was a lightly recruited cornerback who started his career at his hometown university, Louisiana Monroe, which lost all 10 of its games in one of his seasons there.
Then last May, thanks to the newly loosened transfer rules that govern college sports, Newton wound up on the campus of Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas.
He gave a rousing speech in training camp to players he barely knew.
During the 2022 season, quarterback Max Duggan was the Horned Frogs’ leader on the field, but Newton emerged as one of their most vocal and emotional leaders in the locker room of a team that will face Michigan on Saturday in a College Football Playoff semifinal.