The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have been around for more than 50 years, and the franchise has reached a point where the next generation of former players is beginning to make its own mark on football. FOX Sports' Greg Auman recently went through the college football landscape looking for sons of former Buccaneers and came away with a pretty surprising number. Auman counted 21 players with fathers who previously suited up for Tampa Bay, including four sets of brothers, and even Auman acknowledged his list was "hardly complete."
One of the more recognizable families is the McCowns. Former Bucs quarterback Josh McCown has two sons playing quarterback in college, with Owen McCown at UTSA and Aiden McCown at Lamar. Owen has become an established college starter
after starting his career at Colorado before transferring to UTSA. The Johnson family also has two quarterbacks on the list. Brad Johnson, who helped lead Tampa Bay to its first Super Bowl championship, has sons Max and Jake playing at Georgia Southern. That gives one of the most important quarterbacks in Bucs history another connection to the game more than two decades after he helped bring a Lombardi Trophy to Tampa.
Plenty of other familiar last names are scattered throughout Auman's list, showing how much time has passed since some of these players wore pewter and red. It's also an interesting reminder of how many different eras of Buccaneers football are now represented through the next generation. Some of the fathers played relatively short stretches in Tampa, while others had much larger roles during their time with the franchise, and now their sons are carving out their own paths in college football. Having at least 21 sons of former Buccaneers playing college football at the same time is a unique piece of franchise history. Tampa Bay can celebrate having been around long enough that the children of its former players are becoming part of the next generation of football.
This article originally appeared on Bucs Wire: Former Bucs players have over 20 children in college football
