The Seattle Seahawks and the Denver Broncos entered Super Bowl XLVIII with intentions to win, even though the knowledge that only one team can win was evident. Feb 2, 2014 the Seahawks were crowned champions of the National Football League by winning the Super Bowl in a blowout fashion, 43-8.

“Honestly I was expecting a better game,” said Conor Gronbach, junior. “It was a complete disaster of a game for the Broncos. Never again will I look at Peyton Manning the same.”

Peyton Manning is the captain and quarterback of the Denver Broncos. He led his team to a 13-3 record, which captured the AFC’s number 1 spot. In the 2013 regular season, he threw for 5,477 yards and added 910 in the postseason. Manning won regular season MVP honors for the fifth time.

Although Manning is a household name, Russell Wilson is becoming one. This past season was his second in the league. Wilson played all 16 games in the regular season and threw for 3,357 yards and 26 touchdowns.

Wilson is backed up by the league’s number one defense. They ranked first in opposing passing yards per game, only allowing 172 yards per game. To go along with the outstanding pass defense, they ranked seventh in the league for opposing rushing yards allowed per game, only allowing 101.6 yards per game.

This year’s Super Bowl was a matchup between the number one offense in the league versus the number one defense in the league. This has happened only six times in super bowl history before this, and 83% of the time the number one defense has one. The one time the top rated defense did lose was in 1989, and the that team was the Denver Broncos. They lost that game by a staggering 45 points, falling to the San Francisco 49’ers 55-10.

The first half of the game was controlled by Seattle. They tallied 2 touchdowns, a safety, and two field goals. The safety occurred in the first 12 seconds of the game and was the fastest score in super bowl history.

“I watched the game at my friends house, and didn’t speak after the safety until the halftime show,” said Broncos fan Peyton Elder, junior.

The second half was no different except the Broncos were able to score a touchdown at the end of the third quarter. They attempted a two point conversion afterwards and it was successful. Even though the Broncos scored, the Seahawks were able to tally up three more touchdowns.

Throughout the game, the Broncos had 18 first downs compared to the Seahawks 17. Even though the Seahawks lost the fight in first downs, they tallied more yards with 341 to Denver’s 306.

The Seahawks created multiple turnovers off of the Broncos, which was key to their success. The Broncos had four turnovers: two fumbles and two interceptions. They recovered two of their own fumbles, so really, they could have had six turnovers. The run game for the Broncos was shut down during the entire game. Montee Ball, a running back for the Broncos, was their go-to guy when they wanted to run. He had six carries on the night, and with all those carries combined, he gained 1 yard. They only gained 27 rush yards the whole game. This was a big difference from the Seahawks 135 rushing yards.

The final score was 43-8, which is 10 points away from tying the largest Super Bowl blowout in history.