FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- New England Patriots receiver Julian Edelman might not remember Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay from their two matchups in college, but he's still impressed that the opposing head coach in the Super Bowl is his contemporary.
McVay, who turned 33 years old Thursday, played at Miami (Ohio) from 2004 to 2007. Edelman, 32, played at Kent State in 2006-08. Both schools are in the Mid-American Conference.
"It's very remarkable. I mean, he's a stud. He's my age and he's leading an organization to a Super Bowl," Edelman said Friday as the Patriots continued preparations for the Super Bowl LIII against the Rams, set for Feb. 3 in Atlanta. "It's unbelievable and it's a testament to how much he knows the game, how hard he works.
"I love seeing it. He's a MAC guy. You know that Coach McVay and that coaching staff is going to have that team ready and we are going to have to take advantage of that preparation time that we have and get ready, too."
McVay is in his second season as head coach of the Rams. He's the youngest head coach in NFL history to reach the Super Bowl, and is more than eight years younger than Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.
New England coach Bill Belichick is more than 33 years older than McVay. It's the largest age gap in history between Super Bowl coaches, according to ESPN Stats & Information research.
"It just shows you age isn't anything but a number," Patriots defensive end Trey Flowers said. "You put the grind in, you put the work in and you can be whatever you want to be at whatever age."
Edelman and McVay have faced off before. They split their two meetings in college. Edelman, a quarterback at Kent State, threw for 504 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions in those contests.
McVay had the second-most productive game of his college career with four catches for 47 yards in the first meeting. He had seven catches for 84 yards in the two games combined.
Edelman and McVay have taken remarkably different paths since, although it has led them both to Atlanta for this season's Super Bowl. Edelman is second in NFL history with 105 postseason receptions. He has won a pair of championships with the Patriots.
McVay is a career coach who worked his way up the ladder and landed his first head-coaching gig in 2017 with the Rams. Two years later, he's in the Super Bowl, having impressed perhaps the greatest coach of all time.
"Very well coached," Belichick said of the Rams. "Very, I would say, offensively they're creative but they're very fundamentally sound."