N.C. State's Super Bowl connection

(AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

North Carolina State's coach Mark Gottfried reacts during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Miami in Raleigh, N.C., Saturday, Feb. 2, 2013. Miami won 79-78.

N.C. State coach Mark Gottfried has a vested interest in the Harbowl.

Gottfried is Jim and John Harbaugh's second cousin. Their grandmothers were sisters.

Gottfried's oldest son, Brandon, also played football under Jim at Stanford for a season and Jim and John's father, Jack, is the Wolfpack coach's godfather.

And there's a basketball connection to the Harbaughs. Jim and John's sister, Joani, is married to Indiana coach Tom Crean.

In 2006, Gottfried led his Alabama team against Crean's Marquette squad in a first-round NCAA tourney game in San Diego, where - wait for it - Jim Harbaugh was the head coach of the San Diego Toreros, an FCS level program. A year later, Harbaugh moved on to Stanford. Gottfried and the Crimson Tide came out victorious in the game.