Congrats to BYU Alum & Super Bowl Champ Dennis Pitta

Dennis Pitta catches a TD in Super Bowl XLVII
From www.usatoday.com

I never watch pro football, but yesterday afternoon I turned on the Super Bowl as background noise while I was eating dinner and got sucked in. My favorite moment? Well, not counting that thrilling 40-minute blackout delay (haha), it was Dennis Pitta's TD catch, of course!

Even though I wasn't a huge BYU football fanatic during Pitta's BYU career, I still attended all the games and enjoyed watching the Cougars play. Pitta's time as a student at BYU coincided pretty closely to mine (we're about the same age-- which totally weirds me out, by the way), so I remember him pretty well, and he was definitely one of my favorites on the team.

I didn't know this before today, but Pitta was actually a walk-on at BYU. He had to scrape his way to the top, and in the end, succeeded wildly. During his time at BYU, Pitta played in 50 games and recorded 21 TDs, plus a BYU-record 221 receptions for 2,901 yards (3rd place on the record list in that category). And he's not even a wide receiver! Even though that receptions record will likely fall next year to Cody Hoffman, Pitta is still cemented in the record books.

Pitta's professional career with the Baltimore Ravens seems to be taking a similar pattern to his career at BYU-- He started out pretty slowly, and caught only 1 pass during his entire rookie season in 2011. Last year, he improved a lot and had 40 catches and 3 TDs . . . and now in 2013, he's got a Super Bowl ring that he definitely earned and thoroughly deserves. He has now cemented his name in the record books again by becoming only the 2nd former Cougar in history to score a TD in the Super Bowl (the first being Golden Richards in 1978).

It's always great to have a successful Cougar go on to do even greater things after college. Way to go, Pitta! You make us BYU fans proud!