SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Super Bowl 50 is flush with intriguing matchups.
Cam Newton vs. the Broncos' defense, Carolina's front seven vs. Denver's up-and-down offensive line, and Peyton Manning vs. Destiny. But that's not all.
The game also features a showdown between a pair of old college roommates in Panthers wideout Corey Brown and Broncos cornerback Bradley Roby.
The two played together -- and lived together -- during their heady run at Ohio State, leaving Roby to argue that rooming with someone certainly helps understand them better on the field.
"Definitely. Because when you play somebody, you want to know as much as possible about them. And I know a lot about about him," Roby told Around The NFL at Opening Night. "It's not just about me and him, but that definitely would be interesting (to face him). I'm looking forward to it, it's going to be fun. Just to go out there and play a game we've been playing our whole lives -- on the biggest stage -- with your college roommate. The first person I saw when I went to the dorms."
While the two got along well as Buckeyes, their living quarters took a beating.
"I was like, not dirty, but just leaving stuff around, you know how it is," Roby said. "And he's worse than me, for sure. We had a sloppy dorm room."
Brown laughed at that assessment.
"I was the clean one. He was the sloppy one," Brown said. "I was the one that was cleaning up the room every day because, you know, he's a guy that -- he gets up out of bed, throws his blanket on the ground, throws his clothes. I'm the cleaner-upper."
But Brown was just as quick to call Roby a top-shelf roommate, saying: "I had a great time with him. ... We clicked instantly, man, we've got the same personality off the field, and the same personality on the field. We just want to get better and be able to compete."
Brown has spent plenty of time watching Roby on film over the past week, saying: "He's been the same way since college: An aggressive cornerback who wants to make plays. He grinds hard. He's somebody that wants success so bad, man, that he's willing to do anything."
"Anything" might boil to stopping Brown in Super Bowl 50, a confrontation the pair could only fantasize about just a few years ago.
"We always talked about it, man, but we knew it was a long shot," Brown said. "We always talked about playing in the NFL, but for it to happen this early in our careers is ridiculous."
