When college football's national signing day comes around next month, fans and analysts will spend countless hours discussing which schools landed the nation's top high-school quarterback prospects.


But let Super Bowl XLVII serve as a lesson: A world-champion starting quarterback really can come from anywhere.

San Francisco's Colin Kaepernick and Baltimore's Joe Flacco both went to nontraditional football schools that are light years away from the microscope of the BCS. Kaepernick went to Nevada, where he led the Wolf Pack to a win against then-unbeaten Boise State in 2010. Flacco, meanwhile, came from Delaware, transferring to the Football Championship Subdivision from Pittsburgh. The matchup represents a major departure from last year's Tom Brady-Eli Manning battle, which pitted quarterbacks from the Big Ten and Southeastern Conference.

Colin Kaepernick Cal Sport Media/Zuma Press

Nevada has produced a total of 52 NFL players. Delaware has produced 23, for a total of 75. There has never been a Super Bowl where the two starting quarterbacks came from colleges that had fewer NFL alumni.

The Flacco-Kaepernick battle most resembles Super Bowl XXXIV, when the Rams' Kurt Warner (Northern Iowa) beat the Titans' Steve McNair (Alcorn State). Those two schools combined for 81 NFL alumni. That game marked the only time two quarterbacks from non-FBS schools opposed each other in a Super Bowl.

Joe Flacco Cal Sport Media/Zuma Press

All told, Flacco will become just the eighth QB who played for a current non-FBS program to start a Super Bowl. Only three of them won: Warner, Doug Williams (Grambling State) and Phil Simms (Morehead State).

But Flacco isn't the first quarterback from Delaware to start in a Super Bowl—Rich Gannon played for the Blue Hens as well. Gannon's Raiders team lost to the Buccaneers 48-21 in Super Bowl XXXVII.

—Jared Diamond