Students at Eastern watched the Super Bowl LIV to support alum Jimmy Garoppolo while he played for the San Francisco 49ers against the Kansas City Chiefs.

Mark Williams, a senior business management major and Eastern cornerback, said he was rooting for Garoppolo’s team.

“I was actually going for the 49ers, but hey, we lost,” Williams said.

Garoppolo had a part in Williams wanting the 49ers to win, but he also had another connection to the football team.

“I actually played high school football with Nick Bosa,” Williams said.

Williams said he believes the 49ers blew the game.

“I think they blew it. They were up, and they just blew it. I was kind of upset,” Williams said.

Jayden O’Neal, a sophomore sports management major, said he was hoping the Chiefs would win and was impressed with the team.

“What I got from it was that you can never give up because it’s never too late to come back,” O’Neal said.

Some places on campus were having Super Bowl watch parties where groups of students could view the game together.

“I watched it with some friends through campus outreach at one of the apartments,” said Natalie DiRienzo, a freshman special education major.

“I watched it at Thomas Dining with all the other students,” said Kayla Messamore, a senior special education major.

Both DiRienzo and Messamore said Garoppolo was a reason they supported the 49ers. 

Messamore said she believes the Chiefs’ touchdown by Damien Williams should not have counted.

“His foot was definitely out of bounds; it shouldn’t have counted,” Messamore said.

Some students enjoyed the game and thought it was fun to watch.

“It was very slow, but it was fun. I really enjoyed the end — the last 10 minutes of the game were great,” said Derek Deeney, a graduate student in the college student affairs program.

“I liked the game; I feel like you couldn’t tell until the end who was going to win,” said Cloe Bourdages, another graduate student in the college student affairs program.

Bourdages did not have a team she was cheering for, but she said she thought it was great that Garoppolo was playing.

“I thought it was cool because I could actually recognize a football player’s name,” Bourdages said.

Kate Figlewski can be reached at 581-2812 or at kjfiglewski@eiu.edu.