SANTA CLARA – John Lynch’s first pick as the General Manager of the San Francisco 49ers was a player who went to his alma mater, Stanford defensive lineman Solomon Thomas.
But the connection between the two goes deeper than that.
When Thomas was a freshman at Stanford in 2014 he took a class in Management Science and Engineering, and in that class with him was Lynch, returning to school after his 15-year NFL career to finish his degree. First reported by Jenny Ventras of MMQB, Thomas said he and Lynch even ended up in the same group for a class project together.
“I remember I was star stuck the first day of class,” Thomas said Thursday in a conference call to Bay Area media. “He introduced himself as John Lynch. I was like, ‘What? John Lynch is in our class?’ So, I tried to cling on to him and learn from him. Very mature man, he worked very diligently. It was a really, really cool experience to be in class with him.
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“Called him a couple times just to have advice when I was struggling playing or this new season and just trying to take it to the next level and just try to learn from him. He definitely helped me a lot throughout my career and to play for him is an even bigger honor. I can’t wait to do it.”
Thomas was fantastic in the Sun Bowl for Stanford. After North Carolina (and QB Mitch Trubisky, the player taken one spot ahead of Thomas) ripped off a 10-play, 95-yard touchdown drive in the closing moments, Thomas blew through the offensive line and sacked Trubisky.
Thomas’ bowl game performance no doubt helped his draft stock, and the defensive lineman said advice Lynch gave helped him that day.
“During the pre-draft process before we played North Carolina, he told me, ‘Don’t worry about the external stuff going on. Worry about yourself and your team. The best thing you can do is go have the best bowl game possible and just go show them you’re unstoppable and unblockable.’ I took that advice seriously and I went to go do it.”
You can listen to Thomas’ full conference call below: