Trojans in the Senior Bowl
Kimani Vidal and Javon Solomon have joined an exclusive group of Troy alumni: Senior Bowl invitees. Only 18 other Trojans have taken part in the postseason showcase since Troy moved up to Division I in 1991.
Unfortunately, stats for the game are hard to come by, so we’ll focus on their professional careers.
The first Trojan invited to Mobile was Leonard Wheeler in 1992.
The defensive back impressed scouts in Mobile so well he became the Troy’s highest draft pick at the time, a third-round selection by the Bengals.
The previous highest pick was Perry Griggs, taken in the fifth round of the 1977 draft.
Wheeler spent nine years in the NFL, mostly with the Cincinnati Bengals. He retired in 2001.
Two years later, Kelvin Simmons became Troy’s first offensive player invited to Mobile.
Incidentally, Simmons was a Mobile native and Vigor High grad. He went undrafted, but he stayed in-state, playing for the Canadian Football League’s failed Birmingham Barracudas expansion team.
In 16 games, Simmons went 26-of-39 for 292 yards and 3 touchdowns and 1 interception. He also rushed for 136 yards and three scores.
He played one game for the Toronto Argonauts in 1999, but that was all she wrote.
Troy sent two defensive linemen to Mobile in that time, Pratt Lyons in 1997 and Marcus Spriggs In 1999.
Lyons was taken in the fourth round by the Tennessee Oilers, and his career lasted as long as that name did. He played in 32 games, racking up 34 tackles and 4.5 sacks.
The Oilers became the Titans in 1999, and his career came to a close.
That same year, Spriggs was drafted in the sixth round by the Cleveland Browns. He stayed with the franchise until 2002, playing in 18 games and recording 18 tackles and 2 sacks.
He signed a deal with the Texans in 2003, but he was released after six months.
The new millennium began with Troy’s fifth invite: wideout Mareno Philyaw.
Philyaw went to the Falcons in the sixth round, sticking with them two seasons before heading to the Panthers, Arena Football’s Dallas Desperados, Canada’s Saskatchewan Roughriders, an indoor football team in Montgomery, and an Arena Football 2 team in Birmingham.
He hung up the cleats after that.
Troy went through an all-star drought as it moved up to FBS and into the Sun Belt. Then, in 2005, it ended in a big way.
Demarcus Ware has had without a doubt the greatest professional career of any Trojan alum.
The Dallas Cowboys’ 11th overall pick went to nine Pro Bowls, led the league in sacks twice and won Super Bowl 50 with the Denver Broncos. He made the NFL’s 2000s All-Decade team, and he’s Canton bound.
His successor, as far as Troy Senior Bowl selections go, had an equally lengthy and impressive career… outside the sports world.
Thomas Olmsted signed with the Dolphins after the draft, but he didn’t make the final roster. Instead, he joined the military and became a Navy SEAL.
He spent nine years with the SEALs, then graduated from Harvard Business School in 2019.
Two years passed before Troy’s next Senior Bowl representative was invited, and Leodis McKelvin made another major impression.
Like Ware before him, McKelvin made a splash in Mobile. His draft stock shot up, and he tied the Cowboys legend with an 11th-overall pick in the 2008 Draft.
No Sun Belt players have ever come off the board earlier.
McKelvin stayed with the Bills until 2016, making the 2008 All-Rookie Team, then played a season with Philadelphia before calling it a career.
Incidentally, McKelvin played under legendary Troy coach Chan Gailey from 2010-2012.
The Trojans’ run of day 1 picks in the Senior Bowl continued the very next offseason.
Sherrod Martin is the Trojans’ fourth-highest draft pick ever, behind Ware, McKelvin and Osi Umenyiora. The Panthers picked him in the second round, 59th overall.
He spent four seasons in Carolina, before signing with Jacksonville and Chicago.
As his career progressed, he discovered his passion: cutting hair. He’s now a Master Barber working in Atlanta.
Troy’s defensive prowess continued to bring eyes out of Mobile, and in 2010 the Trojans managed a rare feat: two Senior Bowl invites.
Brandon Lang and Cameron Sheffield were both selected to the 2010 Senior Bowl, something that hadn’t happened before, and didn’t happen again until 2022.
Lang was undrafted and spent a season with the Chargers before signing with an Arena Football team. He spent three seasons in the Canadian Football League before hanging up the cleats.
Sheffield was taken by the Chiefs in the fifth round of the draft, but his career was plagued by injuries. The first came in his third game, a preseason matchup with the Eagles.
Sheffield spent two more seasons with the Chiefs, a week with the Cowboys that ended with an injury settlement, and one last season in Canada.
Troy’s next Senior Bowl invite wasn’t even included in the Senior Bowl’s database.
Jerrel Jernigan accepted a Senior Bowl invite the day before Christmas 2010, but he’s not listed on the all-time roster.
Despite this, Jernigan passed Leonard Wheeler to be the Trojans’ fifth-highest draft pick, signing with the Giants. That put him on the roster with fellow Trojans (and Super Bowl winners) Osi Umenyiora and Lawrence Tynes.
The trio—and I guess Eli Manning too—led the Giants to another dramatic Super Bowl win over the Patriots in 2012. He’s also the fifth Trojan to earn a ring at the pro level.
Jernigan stayed with the Giants until 2014, then played a season in Canada in 2016.
The wideout’s invite kicked off a series of offensive players in Mobile for Troy. Of the 11 players before him, eight were defensive. Including him, the next five were offensive.
That includes James Brown, Troy’s first offensive lineman invite.
Brown went undrafted and signed with Chicago. He played five games on the active roster before assignment to the practice squad.
He worked there two years before he was released, signed to the Browns’ practice squad, and cut again.
Larry Blakeney’s last Senior Bowl pick was wideout Eric Thomas In 2014. He went undrafted, signed with the Colts, dropped to the practice roster, moved to the Bills’ roster, and spent a season in Canada.
Then his career began.
Thomas signed with an Indoor Football League team in Cedar Rapids, but was cut again. He signed with the Nebraska team, played with them for four seasons, and even made the all-IFL Second Team Offense in 2018.
The team folded, and he signed with the Green Bay team. The Louisville team fell apart the next season, merged with Green Bay, and Thomas signed with the Iowa team last season.
In that time, Troy has now signed three coaches and sent four players to Mobile. Neal Brown’s first player was Tony Garcia.
Tony was Troy’s first Senior Bowl selection in three years, and ended up the Trojans’ first draft pick in five years.
The Patriots took him with the 85th pick, but during practice he learned he developed blood clots in his lungs. The medication ruled him out of practice, it forced him to lose weight, and his time in New England came to a close.
Garcia signed with the Jets, the Colts and the Dolphins. He tried out for the Raiders in 2020, and signed with the CFL’s Roughriders, followed by the Elks the next season.
He was drafted by the new XFL’s Vegas Vipers this past year, a league his teammate and fellow Senior Bowl invitee Brandon SIlvers is more than familiar with.
Silvers has survived more failed leagues than anyone should. He went to a Saints rookie camp but never signed.
Then the Alliance of American Football’s Memphis Express drafted him. He became an AAF legend by taking over for Johnny Manziel and throwing the game-winning touchdown against his home-state Birmingham Iron.
That league folded, and he signed with the Jets for less than a month.
Then the XFL’s Seattle Dragons drafted him, and he threw the first touchdown of the 2020 season.
That league folded.
He signed with The Spring League, leading all quarterbacks in passer rating.
That league folded.
Silvers missed the USFL Draft and went unsigned, but then Dwayne Johnson revived the XFL in 2022. The new league’s Houston Roughnecks drafted him, and four other Trojans including Garcia signed with teams.
That league merged with the USFL, but the Roughnecks didn’t bring him back.
Then of course, there was last year.
Carlton Martial and Jake Andrews were the 17th and 18th Trojans invited to the postseason game, four years after Silvers.
Andrews went to New England in the fourth round of the draft, becoming Troy’s second draft pick in nine years, following Tony Garcia’s path and reuniting with former Trojan Marcus Jones.
He appeared in every game his rookie year but one, and made his first career start in Week 18 against the Jets.
Martial suffered back tightness during practice at the Senior Bowl, missing the game as well.
He went undrafted, he signed with the Hamilton Tiger Cats of the Canadian Football League in May 2023, and a month later the team released him.
That brings us to 2024.
Javon Solomon and Kimani Vidal both accepted invites to the game, just the third time TWO Trojans were selected. That’s four Trojans in two years, the most at any point in program history.
The two definitely turned heads in practices and interviews leading up to the game, which is the most important part of the week for the players and scouts themselves.
The Senior Bowl game itself, which kicks off Saturday at noon on NFL Network, is more of a final showcase for these players and their hard work all week. It’s the last time they will suit up on the field in their college gear, and the last time they take the field before the draft this spring.
As history shows, their professional prospects are all over the place. Regardless, Solomon and Vidal join a pantheon of players forever remembered for representing Troy.
