Congratulations to former Eastern Illinois quarterback Jimmy
Garoppolo as he was a member of the Super Bowl LI (51) Champion New England Patriots team that beat the Atlanta Falcons 34-28 in overtime on Sunday evening. It was the second ring for
Garoppolo in his three years on the team after being selected in the second round of the 2014 NFL Draft.
As a rookie on the roster in 2014 he earned his first Super Bowl Ring in the 2015 Super Bowl win over the Seattle Seahawks. This past season
Garoppolo engineered two wins at the start of the season and was the back-up last night. In his two starts he passed for just under 500 yards with four touchdowns.
Last week prior to the big game the Prairie State Pigskin Blog did a feature on FCS players from the state of Illinois and their success in the Super Bowl.
Here is the complete link to the blog post.
The excerpt below is the Eastern Illinois section as EIU Panther Football Alumni have now added a
11th Super Bowl Ring to the program legacy.
Eastern Illinois Panthers
EIU graduates are 3-0 as Super Bowl head coaches.
Mike
Shanahan (EIU Class of 1974) won back-to-back Super Bowls with the Denver Broncos in the late
1990s.
Shanahan is a graduate of East
Leyden High School in Franklin, Park. Former EIU teammate and DeKalb native Mike
Heimerdinger coached wide receivers for
Shanahan's Broncos.
Shanahan was chosen at No. 5 of the Top 10 Coaches in Bob
McGinn's The Ultimate Super Bowl Book.
Sean Payton (EIU Class of 1987) won a Super Bowl with the New Orleans Saints in 2010. Payton, a Naperville Central graduate, passed for over 10,000 yards in his EIU career and was the 1986 Gateway Conference Offensive Player of the Year.
Payton's staff included EIU graduates Greg McMahon and Ryan Pace, now the general manager of the Chicago Bears.
Former Eastern offensive lineman Ted Petersen played in two Super Bowls with the Pittsburgh Steelers in the
1970s.
Petersen, a native of
Momence, recently retired as athletic director and director of physical education at Kankakee Community College.
EIU graduate Ken Baker was an NFL referee for 11 years and then spent another eight seasons working the replay booth. Baker served as the replay official for the Super Bowl in 2008 when the New York Giants upset the New England Patriots.
