Former Rangers looking Super

COLCLOUGH When Ford Field is rocking during Super Bowl XL, a pair of former Kilgore College football standouts will be right in the middle of things.

Ricardo Colclough, a defensive back for Pittsburgh, and Robbie Tobeck, an offensive lineman for Seattle, may never have met — they were at KC during different time periods. But they’ll meet Feb. 5 when the Steelers and Seahawks face off in the NFL’s world championship game, which has become an American holiday.

Colclough, a defensive back for the Pittsburgh Steelers, helped Pittsburgh beat the Denver Broncos, 34-17, on Sunday to qualify as the AFC representative for Super Bowl XL.

Colclough is No. 21, and returns kicks for the Steelers. The 5-11, 186-pound corner played for the Rangers in 2000 and 2001, helping KC go unbeaten (12-0) in that 2001 season, current coach Jimmy Rieves’ second year as head coach.

C o l c l o u g h earned AllAmerican and All-Conference honors at KC, where he averaged 40 yards per kickoff return (including five t o u c h d ow n s ) and had four int e r c e p t i o n s , starting all 12 games of that spectacular ’01 season.

Following his time at KC, Colclough, who attended high school in Sumter, S.C., was a standout at Tusculum, where in two seasons he set school careerrecords with 15 interceptions (138 yards in returns) and 38 passes defended.

TOBECK On the season in kick returns, Colclough has 22 returns for 473 yards, including a 63yarder against Detroit on Jan. 1 that set up a touchdown for Steelers running back Jerome Bettis. As a defensive back, he has 24 tackles, one interception and a sack.

Colclough will try to help the Steelers win their first Super Bowl championship since the 1979 season. Since the early 1970s, Pittsburgh has been to four Super Bowls and lost one to Dallas, in Jan. 1996) and with a win in this year’s big game, the Steelers would tie the Cowboys and the San Francisco 49ers with five Super Bowl championships.

Even more incredibly, Colclough and the Steelers fell to 75 after 12 games this year, weathered an injury to starting quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, and rebounded to win three straight road games to get to the Super Bowl. The Steelers routed the Cincinnati Bengals in Cincinnati, knocked off the AFC’s No. 1 seed (the Indianapolis Colts), and then jumped all over the Denver Broncos Sunday in the AFC title game.

Photo by Matt Freed/ Pittsburgh Post-Gazette MAKING A PLAY — Pittsburgh cornerback Ricardo Colclough (21) tries for an interception. Tobeck, who wears No. 61, starts at center for the Seahawks and is part of an offensive line many consider to be the best in pro football.

And the former KC standout is known on the Seahawks as someone you might not want to play a prank on, because apparently, he can hold his own.

“It’s invaluable,” former Seattle quarterback Trent Dilfer told the Seattle Times last year, speaking of Tobeck’s role on the team. Dilfer, a part-time victim, part-time revenge artist, continued. “ (Defensive lineman) Grant Wistrom mentioned how this team is one of the best he’s ever been on in terms of getting along with each other. A lot of that is because of guys like Robbie.

“Robbie is a tremendous leader. He’s able to relate to all 53 guys on the team. He has the ability to communicate with everybody, motivate them and keep them loose. That’s where the jokes fit in.”

Tobeck’s take on his sense of humor?

Photo from seahawks.com LAUGH A MINUTE — Seattle center Robbie Tobeck (right, shown here in practice) keeps things lighthearted with a good sense of humor. “A lot of times, the NFL is pressure,” Tobeck told the Times. “You can’t take that stuff or yourself too serious. But I can say this: Guys have just as much fun with me as I have with them.”

One thing that hasn’t been much to laugh at is the Seahawks’ playoff history, which has been far different from the Steelers. When the Seahawks beat the Washington Redskins two weeks ago, it was their first playoff win since Ronald Reagan was re-elected president.

Tobeck and the Seahawks blew out Carolina over the weekend in the NFC Championship Game, and hope to bring the first-ever Vince Lombardi/ Super Bowl trophy back home to the Pacific Northwest.

The 6-4, 297-pounder came to the Seahawks from the Atlanta Falcons in 2000, and over his 12 NFL seasons, Tobeck has started 142 out of 152 games. Following his time at KC in 1992-93, Tobeck went on to Washington State. He wasn’t drafted, but was signed by the Falcons as a free agent in 1993. After spending some time on the practice squad early in his career, he’s gone on to a good career, blocking for four 1,000yard rushers in Atlanta, and now blocks for NFL most valuable player Shaun Alexander, who broke the single-season rushing touchdown record this year.

Though things are never easy in the NFL, it’s an ever-changing league, the center told seahawks. com recently.

“It’s a little different than it used to be,” says Tobeck. “It used to be defenses would line up in just one defense, and offenses would play regular personnel the whole game, and there wasn’t much to it. Now days you’ve got all these different groups: receivers coming in and out, tight ends coming in and out, different backfield sets. So the defense has to match that, and offensively your center has to see what the defense is doing, has to recognize it along with the quarterback, and get the line directed in the right direction.”

As far as Super Bowls go, this might be Seattle’s first appearance, but it’s not Tobeck’s first rodeo. He was a part of the Falcons team that lost to Denver in Super Bowl XXXIII in Jan. 1999.

At KC, Tobeck was a defensive end. But he moved to offensive line at WSU, where as a senior he started all 12 games at center for the Cougars (they finished 9-3 that year). He was also second-team All-Pac-10.

If there’s a basketball pick-up game in Detroit during Super Bowl week, the Steelers better not challenge Tobeck. The New Port Richie, Fla., native helped NPR High School go 20-0 his senior year — and averaged 21 points and 21 rebounds per game.

He has four children: McKenzie, Mason, Mia, and Madden.