:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/27908885/rossner__russ__jack_and_t-jack.0.jpg)
Heading into this evening's Super Bowl, there will likely only be only one ex Hog who will get any significant burn. The former Razorback left school early last spring, went undrafted, but has carved out a nice niche for himself in Seattle. He threw a key block in the NFC Championship game to spring running back Marshawn Lynch for a 40-yard touchdown run. Those points proved to be the winning margin in a game which finished 23-17.
"I’m having the time of a lifetime," Bailey told The Oklahoman’s Berry Tramel.
He’s made no starts. But Bailey played about a dozen snaps in the NFC Championship Game as an extra lineman. And he cleared out 49er safety Donte Whitner, allowing Lynch to score and put the Seahawks in control.
Bailey said leaving Arkansas wasn’t just a good decision, "it was a great decision."
"I thought I was going to get drafted. Things didn’t work out that way. But I made it to the Seahawks, we’re in the Super Bowl now. I don’t regret anything."
Btw, here’s a nice KARK interview with Bailey’s gargantuan uncle, who’s livin’ large in Little Rock and is the main reason Bailey chose to attend Arkansas in the first place.
Tarvaris Jackson
Jackson hardly looked like a future pro during his two seasons as Razorback quarterback in 2002 and 2003. He had plenty "physical tools," sure, but so does every other QB who starts at least one game in the SEC. What he lacked was the maturity to put it all together, and the patience to see it through in Fayetteville. Ten years after he transferred to Alabama State, he becomes the most unlikely former Razorback quarterback to be on a Super Bowl roster only a couple years after becoming the most unlikely ex Hog to throw for 3,000 yards in the NFL.
To me, it doesn’t matter that he likely won’t play a snap. Or that in the last week he has inspired such headlines as "Tarvaris Jackson’s Super Bowl Preparation is Sad and Boring." But laugh not. Appreciate how amazing it is he’s almost been in the League for a full decade at QB, given how uninspiring his UA days were. It would be like time traveling to the NFL circa 2022 only to find Brandon Mitchell there as a savvy backup QB to Rafe Peavey in the Cowboy’s long-awaited return to the Super Bowl.