Players come from all over to compete for football’s biggest prize — the Lombardi Trophy — in the Super Bowl, and they embark on their path to the game before playing a single NFL snap.
The path begins at events like the Senior Bowl, which is underway this week in Mobile, Ala., as the new class of future pros transition from college stars to NFL hopefuls that have dreamed of competing in the league’s pinnacle game.
Not surprisingly, college football’s traditional powers have fared the best when it comes to sending players to the Super Bowl.
Alabama, LSU, Stanford and (surprise!) Rutgers each have 4 alumni on the active rosters, the most of any school, for the NFC-champion Falcons and AFC-champion Patriots, who will meet in Super Bowl LI on Feb. 5.
None of those schools crack the top 10, however, when we delve deeper into history to see which colleges have sent the most players to the Super Bowl.
Who leads the way, among colleges, in producing Super Bowl players?
We went back to 1970, the year of the AFL-NFL merger, to find out. We counted players who appeared in each Super Bowl since (players who were on the roster but not active for the Super Bowl were not included). We counted each player only once (Tom Brady counts as 1 in Michigan’s total, Joe Montana counts as 1 in Notre Dame’s total, etc.). We also have included players from the Patriots‘ and Falcons‘ 53-man rosters who have not yet played in a Super Bowl to the count.
Here are the 26 colleges that have sent the most players to the Super Bowl since the merger.
Most alumni in Super Bowl since 1970
1t. Tennessee, 61
1t. Miami (Fla.), 61
3. USC, 59
4t. Michigan, 52
4t. Nebraska, 52
6t. Ohio State, 51
6t. Notre Dame, 51
8t. Penn State, 50
8t. Florida State, 50
10. UCLA, 49
11t. Colorado, 47
11t. Georgia, 47
13. California, 46
14. Florida, 43
15. Alabama, 40
16t. North Carolina, 37
16t. Washington, 37
16t. Texas, 37
16t. Oklahoma, 37
16t. Stanford, 37
21t. Pittsburgh, 36
21t. Texas A&M, 36
23t. Michigan State, 34
23t. LSU, 34
23t. Arizona State, 34
23t. Clemson, 34
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