Fans Couldn’t Get Enough Of The Pop-Tarts Bowl Mascot’s Quest To Die And Be Eaten

There are three types of college football bowl games your team could find itself at. You have the New Year’s Six games that have rich histories and carry a lot of weight, especially if they’re in the Playoff rotation. Then there are the ones sponsored by tech companies, mortgage/insurance companies, logistic companies, and the military industrial complex that no one’s really sure what the bowl sponsor does, exactly, but here you are at the 68 Ventures Bowl.

And then you have the bowls sponsored by the food industry, which always are the ones that set the bar in terms of having fun with bowl season. The Duke’s Mayo Bowl had been the gold standard, having mayo eating competitions and dumping a tub of mayo on the winning coach, but they now have some still competition when it comes to really embracing the absurdity of sponsoring a bowl game.

The inaugural Pop-Tarts Bowl — formerly the Cheez-It Bowl, Camping World Bowl, MicronPC Bowl, and, originally, the Blockbuster Bowl — teased for months that they were going to have the first ever edible mascot at a bowl game. On Thursday night in Orlando, they unveiled that mascot (a strawberry frosted Pop-Tart) who was on a quest to die, get toasted, and be eaten by the winning team. It was equal parts dark and inspiring, featuring some truly bizarre moments along the way.

There was the mascot force-feeding Pop-Tarts to media members.

Then players trying to eat it after the game before it was time.

And finally, it descended into the toaster and out came a giant slab of Pop-Tarts that the Kansas State Wildcats (who beat NC State 28-19) devoured.

The final product was a single eyeball left, as the Wildcats ravaged the giant Pop-Tart in celebration.

It was quite the production and while it was completely absurd, it also had the intended effect as the Pop-Tarts mascot was trending on social media and fans seemingly couldn’t get enough of its quest to die and be eaten. I hope the takeaway from this (and the Duke’s Mayo Bowl) is to keep pushing the boundaries on how weird we can get with food bowl games, because it really is the reason for the season in college football.