At this time of the year, college football can seem a little like peewee soccer: Everybody gets a trophy.
Players will compete for some of the oldest and oddest hardware in the sport.
Purdue and Indiana will battle for the Old Oaken Bucket, which dates to 1925. At stake when Minnesota and Iowa meet is Floyd of Rosedale, a statue of a pig – though in 1935 the tradition started when the two governors wagered a real pig on the game.
In Columbia, Mo., the winner of Iowa State-Missouri gets the Telephone Trophy. Half red for the Cyclones, half yellow for the Tigers, the trophy dates back to 1960 and might be the only time these iPhone generation players ever see a rotary version in their lives.
og on the outcome of the ’35 game.
Getting a hold of that bronze pig is still serious business for the Hawkeyes and Gophers.
“Everyone hits a little harder, everyone runs a little faster, everyone does a little more. The pig has some meaning,” Minnesota linebacker Nate Triplett said. “It’s something I’m going to be fighting for, definitely.”
Other traditional rivalries have quirkier trophies and lighter history, often involving fraternities, thefts, fisticuffs or some combination of the three.
The Golden Egg Trophy, given to the winner of the Mississippi-Mississippi State game since 1927, was started basically to stop rival fans from beating on each other and tearing up the fields after games.
Most of the trophies are long-standing – 46 of the 65 listed in the NCAA record book date back at least 30 years. The ones that have sprung up recently, and far less organically, tend to be not quite as, shall we say, quaint.
Take the Land Grant Trophy – if you have a hand-truck to haul it away.
Penn State and Michigan State, the two oldest land grant institutions in the country – now that’s something to build a rivalry upon – have been playing for the trophy since 1993, when the Nittany Lions joined the Big Ten and someone decided they needed a rival.
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The wooden monstrosity is adorned with a figurines of a Nittany Lion and a Spartan, pictures of two pleasant but rather nondescript buildings from the respective campuses and topped with a golden football player.
So, Penn State center Stefen Wisniewski, what does the Land Grant Trophy mean to you?
“It means a lot of guys are looking around and saying, ‘What is that giant piece of wood in our locker room?’ I don’t know if I’d rather have it than not have it,” Wisniewski joked.
He said most players “don’t quite understand the reason for it. … It’s weird looking, but it’s cool to have.”
Last year the Land Grant Trophy took a spill as Penn State workers were transporting it around Beaver Stadium on a golf cart and sustained some minor damage.
“It’s in pretty tiptop shape right now. The wood is really shining, the lion is looking pretty good,” Penn State quarterback Daryll Clark said.
At 4-feet tall and weighing about 50 pounds, it takes a couple players to safely celebrate with the Land Grant.
But it’s not nearly as big as another newcomer to college football’s trophy case.
The gargantuan Golden Boot goes to the winner of the LSU-Arkansas game.
The Tigers and Razorbacks had some history before Arkansas joined the Southeastern Conference in 1992, so to make the Hogs feel at home a rivalry was created between the two westernmost members of the league.
Former Arkansas player, now radio talk show host, David Bazzel came up with the idea of a trophy game, pitched it to then-Razorbacks athletic director Frank Broyles and what became known as the Golden Boot made its debut in 1996, all 175 pounds of it.
“Let’s create one that’s gaudy and big and expensive and heavy,” Bazzel said earlier this week, recalling his thinking behind the $10,000 trophy.
“I want it to take three or four big guys to haul it off.”
The 4-foot tall, 24-karat gold trophy is sculpted in the shape of the states of Arkansas and Louisiana, which makes it look like a boot – big enough to fit a baby rhino.
Size hardly matters to players, though. As Bazzel points out, competitors like trophies.
“You can say what you want, but if you’re a player and you’re playing for something, you want to win it,” he said. “Whether it’s a pencil or a coke can or that big shiny boot.”
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AP Sports Writers Genaro Armas in State College, Pa., Jon Krawczynski in Minneapolis and Noah Trister in Little Rock, Ark., contributed to this report.
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