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Daniel Kilgore To Become Only Second Former ASU Football Player to Play in Super Bowl

Daniel Kilgore
Daniel Kilgore

Jan. 21, 2013. Offensive lineman Daniel Kilgore will become only the second former Appalachian State University student-athlete to play in a Super Bowl when his San Francisco 49ers take on the Baltimore Ravens in Super Bowl XLVII on Feb. 3 in New Orleans.

Kilgore, who played at Appalachian State from 2006-10, and the 49ers won the NFC championship on Sunday with a 28-24 victory over the top-seeded Atlanta Falcons. Kilgore will join Matt Stevens, who won the Super Bowl as a defensive back with the New England Patriots following the 2001 season, as the only former Mountaineers to ever play in the world’s biggest football game. Ironically, Kilgore will play in his first Super Bowl in the New Orleans’ Superdome, the same building where Stevens’ Patriots upset the St. Louis Rams, 20-17, in Super Bowl XXXVI.

In addition to Kilgore and Stevens, two more former Mountaineers have been members of Super Bowl teams. One year after Stevens won Super Bowl XXXVI with New England, Daniel Wilcox was on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ 53-man roster for Super Bowl XXXVII. Wilcox was inactive but on the sideline for the the Buccaneers’ 48-21 win over the Oakland Raiders. Running back John Settle was a member of the Washington Redskins team that won Super Bowl XXVI following the 1991 season but did not see game action during the campaign.

Super Bowl XLVII will not be Kilgore’s first title-game experience. As a redshirt freshman at Appalachian State, he recovered a fumble in the end zone for his only career touchdown during the Mountaineers’ 49-21 victory over Delaware in the 2007 NCAA Division I Football national championship game. In another bit of irony, Delaware’s quarterback in the 2007 national championship game was Joe Flacco, who will quarterback the Ravens against the Kilgore’s 49ers in Super Bowl XLVII.

Kilgore also won a national title while redshirting as a true freshman in 2006. 

The Kingsport, Tenn. native is in his second NFL season. The 49ers selected him in the fifth round (163rd overall) of the 2011 NFL Draft. He has appeared in all 18 games as San Francisco’s top reserve offensive lineman this season.