{"id":164539,"date":"2026-02-05T02:49:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T02:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/164539\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T02:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T02:49:08","slug":"sac-state-alum-marte-mapu-reflects-on-journey-as-super-bowl-nears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/164539\/","title":{"rendered":"Sac State alum Marte Mapu reflects on journey as Super Bowl nears"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Marte Mapu, a Sacramento State alum, will take the field with the New England Patriots at the Super Bowl against the Seattle Seahawks.<\/p>\n<p>SACRAMENTO, Calif. \u2014 A Sacramento State alum will take the field on football&#8217;s biggest stage on Super Bowl Sunday at Levi&#8217;s Stadium.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Marte Mapu\u2019s road to the Super Bowl began when he was a standout linebacker for the <a href=\"https:\/\/hornetsports.com\/sports\/football\/roster\/marte-mapu\/7416\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Sacramento State Hornets.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The former Hornet is part of an upstart <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patriots.com\/team\/players-roster\/marte-mapu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">New England Patriots<\/a> squad headed to the Big Game after a surprise 14-3 regular-season record. In their 12th Super Bowl appearance, the Patriots will face the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl 60 at Levi\u2019s Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>Mapu credits Sacramento State for helping shape the path that led him to the NFL and a chance at a Super Bowl championship.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI feel like that\u2019s kind of what helped me get to this point now,\u201d Mapu told ABC10\u2019s Kevin John. \u201cI don\u2019t know how it would have looked if I ended up anywhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His best season with the Hornets came in 2022, when he was named Big Sky Defensive Player of the Year. Mapu finished second on the team with 76 total tackles in 13 games and earned first-team All-Big Sky honors.<\/p>\n<p>Following his standout senior season, Mapu became the highest-drafted player in Sacramento State history when the Patriots selected him with the 76th overall pick in the third round of the 2023 NFL Draft.<\/p>\n<p>His best game of the 2025 season came Oct. 19 against the Tennessee Titans. Mapu recorded eight tackles and a pass deflection in a 31-13 win.<\/p>\n<p>Reflecting on the moment, Mapu said the significance of playing in the Super Bowl hit him during a taco run with friends, when he realized how close the game would be to his former stomping grounds.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were just kind of talking about how close to home we\u2019re actually playing this game,\u201d Mapu said. \u201cAt first, I was really just focused on the game, and it didn\u2019t really faze me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo be playing this close to home, to be practicing in the same facility that some of my coaches are in right now, to be able to go and see my family during the week \u2014 I\u2019m grateful for those things,\u201d Mapu said.<\/p>\n<p>WATCH MORE ON ABC10 |<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-cO_FhxXTwk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">\u00a0Fans, celebrities enjoy Pro Bowl Games<\/a><\/p>\n<p>    ABC10: Watch, Download, Read<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marte Mapu, a Sacramento State alum, will take the field with the New England Patriots at the Super&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":{"0":"post-164539","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sacramento","8":"tag-sacramento","9":"tag-sacramento-headlines","10":"tag-sacramento-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}