Orlando, Fla. ? A country tale starring a country hero ended Monday night with a gang of red-clad admirers clapping hard enough to make their hands raw.
Philip Rivers, looking goofy yet regal, trotted off the field with his old high school rival at his side. A few steps before they reached the sideline, both players raised their arms up and down, inciting more rabid respect.
The good ol’ boy went out in a good ol’ way.
“I hate to imagine this was the last time walking through that tunnel,” Rivers said. “But I couldn’t think of a better way for it to end.”
Quietly, like a possum cavorting on an Alabama road, this thought now enters the mind as Rivers exits: He belongs among the greatest college quarterbacks of all-time, right there with a Detmer, a Testaverde, a Flutie and every other phenomenal talent to grace college football.
He won’t go down as the greatest winner. Surely, N.C. State had bigger dreams than an 8-5 season and Tangerine Bowl appearance this season. The Wolfpack, with the greatest quarterback they’ll ever have, did not get to compete for a national championship. But we shouldn’t blame Rivers for that.
He did everything a legend could do. And he exited memorably, with a 475-yard, five-touchdown game in a 56-26 victory over Kansas University. It was nothing special, really. Just one of many great performances.
“If he’s not the best quarterback in the nation, I really don’t know who is,” said wide receiver Jerricho Cotchery, the old rival who came to N.C. State with Rivers and shared four amazing years.
To tell this story, you need an Alabama twang. You need to talk like you have a piece of ham hock crammed into your mouth.
Be sure to mention how Rivers walked onto that N.C. State campus as an innocuous player, just some tall and skinny kid from Athens, Ala., who never had thrown more than 195 passes in a high school season.
He was good, for sure, but a transcending kind of good? Who knew? Rivers passed for 397 and 401 yards in his first two college games, and it was on after that.
Rivers had four winning seasons and went to four bowl games. He injected excitement into the start of Chuck Amato’s coaching career. He beat Florida State twice. He had so many incredibly efficient games that he left college with the second-highest quarterback rating ever.
The more you learn about this kid, the more you love him. He met a girl, Tiffany, during middle school and told his mom, “One day, I’ll marry her.” He did. They have been married four years and have a 17-month old daughter, Halle.
His 1996 Ford Taurus has more than 120,000 miles on it. His laces are so straight that cursing and alcohol and even sweets are forbidden.
Give him a chance to make a case for his place in college football history, and he says, “It’s not necessarily something I think about right now. Maybe I’ll look at that down the road.”
The guy with the magical arm and crooked release is going to the NFL now. Philip Rivers just might become a player there, too.
N.C. State is certainly glad he decided to become a player in college.
He came as a country boy just trying to play football.
He left a blushing legend, almost embarrassed by the clapping and chanting of his name.
“If you had laid this out and said this was going to happen in four years,” Rivers said, looking goofy yet regal, “I would’ve said, ‘No way.'”
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