Before a few seconds of football launched Malcolm Butler’s meteoric rise to fame and clinched the Super Bowl championship for the New England Patriots, even his own team didn’t know who he was.

The Boston Globe on Sunday night called the Vicksburg native a “no-name” Sunday night after Butler’s goal-line interception with 26 seconds left in the fourth quarter sealed the Patriots wins over the Seahawks.

For New Englanders, they were right. In September, the Super Bowl champs to be Patriots had no idea who Butler was, and hardly anyone seemed to notice.

That’s right.  For a feature about Butler that ran in the Post Sept. 3, the public relations wing of the New England Patriots sent us a photo of a player they said was Butler. The player is about Butler’s height, weight and complexion and dressed in Pats’ practice gear, but it wasn’t him.

“We got burned by the Patriots,” Post sportswriter Ernest Bowker announced to the newsroom after the photo was published. “They sent us the wrong guy.”

So did the thousands of Butler fans in town call and complain? Not exactly.

“We got one call, and I think it was his mom. She was very polite about it,” sportswriter Cory Gunkle told me.

Butler drew little media attention outside The Vicksburg Post before his Super Bowl heroics. He sat out the first half of the game, and came in midway though the second quarter. I first noticed him on an incredible break-up on a third-down pass from Russell Wilson.

“Malcolm Butler is having a great series right now” I sent in a text to Cory.

By the end of the night, that great series turned into “and Malcolm Butler just won the Super Bowl single-handedly.” Not bad for an undrafted rookie.

We’re still not sure who the fake Malcolm Butler was but I’m certain NBC’s Al Michaels never called him “the hero of the Super Bowl” as 114.5 million people watched.

And now, at least, the Patriots know Butler’s name and face.

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Josh Edwards is a reporter and can be reached by email at josh.edwards@vicksburgpost.com or by phone at 601-636-4545.