Hurts, Mahomes To Make Texas-sized History
For 57 years, the Super Bowl has been the biggest annual football game in the world. Winning the National Football League’s championship game immortalizes the career for every player lucky enough to win it.
But when the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles take the field in Glendale, Arizona, the famed contest will be unlike any before.
Jalen Hurts will be the signal caller for the Eagles in their second Super Bowl appearance in five years. The third year quarterback will become the fifth starting quarterback in a Super Bowl out of the great state of Texas.
Jalen Hurts
Until 2010, no Texas-native quarterback had ever started in a Super Bowl. Drew Brees (Austin Westlake HS) became the first when he led the New Orleans Saints to a Super Bowl XLIV victory.
The next came seven years later, which was the last time the Eagles were in the big game. Nick Foles (Austin Westlake HS), who was not the original starter for Philadelphia, stepped up and pulled off an upset of Tom Brady and the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LII.
In 2022, Matthew Stafford (Highland Park HS) joined the list by leading the Los Angeles Rams to a championship on his own turf.
Then there is Patrick Mahomes. The field general for the Chiefs is the only Texan signal caller to make multiple Super Bowl appearances, winning Super Bowl LIV and then falling victim to Tom Brady’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Super Bowl LV.
Patrick Mahomes
Mahomes spent his high school career at Whitehouse High School just outside of Tyler. From there he moved westward to Lubbock and spent his college days under Kliff Kingsbury at Texas Tech.
Despite his experience, this game may be the toughest Mahomes has ever faced. Aside from the tweaked ankle he suffered three weeks ago, this is a quarterback battle for the ages. Both quarterbacks can work well on the run, both are extremely accurate, but more importantly, they are both from Texas.
Super Bowl LVII will mark the first time that two Texan quarterbacks will matchup head-to-head in the big game. To anybody not from Texas, that does not mean much. But for those of us that are, that means almost everything.
It is a cliché, but it’s true; in Texas, football is religion. Towns shut down on Fridays, colleges party on Saturdays, and everyone is wearing some shade of blue on Sundays. With all of that tradition, the winning expectation is through the roof.
Mahomes felt the pressure at Whitehouse when his team suffered a heartbreaking regional semifinals loss his senior year. He felt it at Texas Tech when he matched up with Oklahoma’s Baker Mayfield. And he definitely felt it in his last two Super Bowl appearances.
Hurts is no different. Though he never led Channelview very far in the playoffs, once he got to Alabama, everything changed. Hurts quickly became the first true freshman starter at Alabama in 32 years and led the Tide to the College Football Playoff.
After being benched for Tua Tagovailoa for the entirety of his junior year, Hurts transferred to Oklahoma where he won the Big 12 Championship with the Sooners.
Needless to say, these two have experience on big stages. And because of the winning expectation they have grown up through, both expect to lift the Vince Lombardi Trophy when the clock runs out.
However, only one will. And for whichever comes back to their Texas hometown empty handed, he may be eligible to claim domestic necessity with how sick it would make him and his loved ones. While the winner will make a trip back to his hometown and be greeted like a king on his old home turf.
Either way, the winning quarterback is coming home to Texas. As fans, that’s really all we could ask for. For one Sunday, the two most important players on the field are from the great state of Texas, and the world will get a special glimpse of just how important the game of football is in the Lone Star State.
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