By Terrence Hinds, Staff writer

Published in print Jan. 28, 2015

Super Bowl Sunday is arguably the biggest event of the calendar year.

The game is the culmination of a long grueling NFL season. This year, as it has traditional been since the first game in 1966, features the best team in the AFC Conference and the best team from the NFC Conference.

This year is especially rare because, in the regular season standings, this has only happened three times in the past 15 years where both teams were the number one seed in their respective conference for the season.

These two teams competing in each game had pretty similar years as well. Each team went through some mid season turmoil that caused much of the media to question whether or not they were who we expected them to be.

For the New England Patriots, it came after a 41-14 defeat at the hands of the Kansas City Chiefs in September on a nationally televised game.

Superstar Tom Brady was under pressure the entire game as his offensive line was dreadful at the time.

This game prompted questions such as: Will this Patriots defense live up to expectation? Is Tom Brady on the decline? (and my personal favorite) Is the Patriots reign over?

All the Patriots did from that point on was go “Onto Cincinnati” as coach Bill Belichick stated in an interview after the lost.

The team then crushed the previously undefeated Bengals on Sunday Night Football.

Since that game it has been the same old Patriots we have seen for the past decade, as they reeled off an 11-2 stretch to close out the rest of the regular season.  Their offensive line settled down, their defense came alive behind linebackers Dont’a Hightower and Chandler Jones, and Rob Gronkowski has once again became one of the most devastating pass receivers in football.

The Seattle Seahawks had their mid season crisis after a rare home loss to the Dallas Cowboys.

They were 3-2 at the time and some media members were beginning to think that they were suffering from the Super Bowl hangover that has plagued so many teams in the past.

Seattle then added more fuel to the fire by trading their play making wide receiver Percy Harvin to the Jets the day that they were scheduled to leave for their week 7 game against the St. Louis Rams.

They then proceeded to lose that football game which caused many supporters to jump off the bandwagon.

All they did from that point on was go 9-1 to finish the season.

They were aided by the return of their linebacker Bobby Wagner and strong safety Kam Chancellor who were injured for the first couple games of the season. Their defense regained championship form only allowing 6.5 points per game for the final six games of the season.

These two now face off in a highly anticipated match up that should produce one hell of a game.

There are so many story-lines going into this contest.

Tom Brady faces off against the Legion of Boom  defensive backfield for the first time since the “You mad bro” match up two years ago. In that game defensive star Richard Sherman had his coming out party.

Sherman intercepted the usually calculated Brady and added in a pass deflection. Brady had a tough time throwing into the fast and athletic secondary two years ago.

Walking around campus to see how some students felt about the impending game, I spoke to one UNCG senior  Kibari Wiley, who is positive that the New England Patriots will win their fourth Super Bowl in franchise history.

Wiley also believes that Tom Brady will have a lot more success this time around than in previous match-ups against the Seahswks as well as his last two Super Bowl appearances where he feel to defeat against the New York Giants.

In fact, Wiley predicts Tom Brady to win the Super Bowl MVP, the third of his career.

Wiley also projected Brady to have a strong game as the senior predicted a stat line of 336 passing yards to go along with four touchdown passes and zero interceptions.

Wiley predicts the Patriots to win the game 31-17.

An outcome like that will surely solidify Tom Brady, winner of three previous Super Bowls  as the greatest quarterback of all time .