The ire and animosity of college football rivalries are real, but at the end of the day, it’s supposed to be fun. Take Yale’s 2004 prank on Harvard, when students swapped out card-stunt signs to spell “We Suck” instead of “Go Harvard.” Or Georgia Tech in 1992, tarping over Georgia’s midfield “G” with a “GT” logo just long enough to trick cameras into catching Bulldogs fans cheering for “Ramblin’ Wreck.” That’s rivalry mischief at its harmless, hilarious best.
Unfortunately, things can become unfriendly and lines can get crossed — from mascot thievery and pure unbridled vandalism to NSFW end zone celebrations — turning simple pranks into moments of pure sports infamy. And those are the moments we're diving into.
Want more rivalries? Explore FanSided’s Rivalry Week Hub, our interactive deep dive into the traditions, history and moments that define college football’s fiercest matchups.
Auburn’s Toomer’s Corner trees poisoned by an Alabama fan
The most infamous feels like the only reasonable place to start — and that place is Toomer's Corner in Auburn, Ala., the site of the famous oak trees that Auburn fans adorn with toilet paper after a Tigers win.
Alabama and Auburn’s Iron Bowl has produced plenty of chaos over the years, but nothing topped what happened after Cam Newton’s 2010 comeback win in Tuscaloosa. Fueled by rumors that Auburn fans had rolled Toomer’s Corner after Bear Bryant’s death and put a Cam Newton jersey on his statue, Alabama fan Harvey Updyke drove to Auburn and poisoned the iconic oak trees with Spike 80DF. In true SEC fashion, he called into The Paul Finebaum Show two months later to proclaim he did it.
Despite efforts to save them, the trees had to be removed in 2013, ending a landmark tradition that had stood since the 1930s. While Updyke concealed his identity as "Al" in the initial call to Finebaum, he was eventually found and pleaded guilty to the charge of criminal damage of an agricultural facility. He received a three-year sentence, served about 70 days, and was ordered to pay roughly $800,000 in restitution. He died in 2020.
Tulane students steal LSU’s live mascot, Mike the Tiger
Honestly, if you can steal a live tiger and get away with it unscathed, maybe it shouldn't even be considered crossing the line. And that's what Norbert James did back in 1950 when he and his friends managed to let the Louisiana-based rivalry (that has lost some of its steam in modern times) between Tulane and LSU out of its cage, so to speak.
James, along with his friends Oscar Riess, Joe Miller and Tex Powell, came back from hunting the night before the LSU-Tulane matchup that year when they found Mike the Tiger, LSU's live mascot, unguarded in a caged trailer before his appearance the next day. Even though they didn't have a vehicle with a trailer hitch, they made do with a chain and hooked Mike's cage to a 1942 Plymouth and tiger-napped the LSU mascot as they took him to the Tulane campus.
Even crazier is the fact that the then-dean of students was made aware of Mike's presence on campus, but only asked that it be moved somewhere safer. What did the group of "bandits" do? Take the tiger to Riess's house, of course.
James and Riess were questioned by the police, but not arrested, and Mike was returned to LSU custody before kickoff. Needless to say, though, upon his return, the tiger was under a much closer watch and heavier guard from the LSU student body and administration. The game went ended in a 14-14 tie.
A South Carolina fraternity impersonated Clemson's team
It was a great gimmick and a well-orchestrated prank that clearly went too far once the aftermath unfolded in Columbia during the Clemson–South Carolina rivalry matchup. The plan itself started weeks earlier, when members of South Carolina’s Sigma Nu fraternity concocted the idea to get one over on their bitter in-state rivals during a rough 1961 season.
After (somehow) getting the blessing of then-Gamecocks head coach Marvin Bass, more than four dozen Sigma Nus acquired high-school uniforms mimicking Clemson’s orange and purple, dressed one member as coach Frank Howard, and even practiced stretching and rehearsed “plays” before their big caper—running out of the tunnel impersonating the Tigers.
Now, while something like this wouldn’t remotely fly today, it could’ve stayed a harmless prank as they intentionally kicked bad punts, fumbled for no reason, and danced in the end zone. But things took a turn for the worse once fans got involved. Clemson fans confronted the Sigma Nus on the field. South Carolina fans rebutted to protect the students, and a brawl ensued — one that took 30 minutes to quell between the officials and security.
An Oregon fan burns part of Oregon State’s field
The rivalry for Oregonian supremacy may no longer be called "Civil War," but it was an apt moniker for the animosity between Oregon and Oregon State fans. You could fill the 46.7 miles between Eugene and Corvallis with all of the bad blood between these two programs, but there was only once when one of the fields — in this case, the Beavers' Reser Stadium — paid the price.
Stakes were high, albeit differently so, heading into the 2010 matchup between the Ducks and Beavers in Corvallis. Oregon was trying to punch its ticket to the BCS National Championship Game with another win, while OSU was, instead, aiming to become bowl eligible at 5-6. The better team won, with Oregon claiming a 37-20 victory on the road, which naturally led to Ducks fans celebrating on the field at Reser Stadium, but perhaps a bit too hard.
Part of the field turf was left burned after a fan was spotted setting something — widely rumored to be an Oregon State jersey — on fire amid the chaos of fans rushing the field. The damage sparked a police investigation, and a 20-year-old junior at Oregon was later identified as the culprit.
Elijah Moore’s infamous ‘Ole Piss’ Egg Bowl celebration
It's not always the fans who take rivalries too far. The players can get involved too. Former Ole Miss wide receiver Elijah Moore proved that in one of the most infamous and calamitous renditions of the Egg Bowl. Naturally, it took place amid the sound of cowbells in Starkville.
In a low-scoring affair, Ole Miss was driving to tie the game in the final minute and force overtime when Matt Corral hit Elijah Moore for a two-yard touchdown. All the Rebels needed was the extra point to tie. But Moore headed to the back of the end zone and mimicked a dog urinating on the Mississippi State logo. To the shock of absolutely no one, it drew an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and pushed the kick back 15 yards. The kick missed, and that infamous celebration ended up costing Ole Miss the Egg Bowl by a single point.
It would probably be an infamous moment regardless of the outcome, considering the brazenness and absurdity of Moore's celebration in itself. However, the fact that the resulting penalty ultimately also cost Ole Miss the game only adds to the infamy of the moment.
Army cadets steal the wrong Navy goat
Mascot thieving has already been a theme here and, if done safely, I'm not going to get fake outraged about that and tell you it's a problem. At the same, one thing I would certainly advise in such situations is making sure that, if you're going to steal a rival's mascot, maybe steal the right one. West Point cadets back in 2021 could've used that advice.
For those who don't know, it's been a longstanding "tradition" in the Army-Navy rivalry that the two military academies try to get one over on each other by stealing the other's mascot. But prior to the 2021 meeting, they must've gotten confused. Or, rather, the cadets in charge of the annual caper might not have known what the hell they were doing.
Rather than taking then-mascot, Bill No. 37, the West Point attendees nabbed Bill No. 34. And perhaps the most hilarious part is that they probably should've known they were stealing the wrong goat, because Bill No. 34 was described at the time as "an arthritic, 14-year-old retiree with only one horn."
Thankfully, arthritic old Bill was returned healthy the following Monday. However, it's certainly an unforgettable caper when a decades-old prank turns into a geriatric goat abduction.
Miami (OH) players fight the Ohio alumni band
Between Oxford and Athens, there hasn't been much love lost between the MAC rivals over the years in the Battle for the Bricks. If we're talking about infamous moments that should live on forever, though, this rivalry takes us back to 1992 and a sight that sounds straight out of a movie — and not one that you would probably take seriously.
It was homecoming for the Ohio Bobcats, which meant that the halftime show featured the student band and the alumni band performing on the field together. However, perhaps due to miscommunication to the band's director, the performance went long, and an upset Miami (OH) Redhawks team took the field after a rough first half. They began warming up and encroaching upon the band playing. Words were exchanged, and a fight between Miami players and members of the Ohio alumni band ensued.
Some might call it a confluence of unfortunate events. But it's truly unlike anything you'll ever see on a college football field, rivalry or not. Players fighting band members (much less band members who are no longer students!) is on the brink of absurdity, if not all the way across that line.
Texas A&M students successfully steal Bevo, triggering a statewide manhunt
While one could argue convincingly that stealing a steer might not carry the exact same danger as stealing Mike the Tiger, the fact that Texas A&M pulled off the ultimate prank against their rival to a degree that the Texas Rangers got involved speaks to how illustrious and infamous the cow theft of Bevo was back in 1963.
As the story has been told, Bevo was kept, at the time, a little more than 10 miles away from Austin at a farm. And that was when a group of A&M students hatched the plan to steal the Texas Longhorns' iconic mascot. They rented a trailer and had the gall to drive Bevo around the quad in College Station before they went and hid him in a farmhouse.
That would be about when the Silver Spurs, the Texas students who are in charge of Bevo's care, were made aware that the mascot was missing. Call it snitching or whatever you want, but they called the Texas Rangers (the law enforcement, not the baseball team) to try and hunt down and return the steer. But A&M didn't relent, despite plenty of threats and questioning, even moving Bevo to a different farm than the one that they initially took him to.
Bevo was eventually found after more than 24 hours missing, when he was then taken to a veterinarian. Everything was fine with the steer, but to add to the wildness of the moment, there were A&M students and fans who watched and cheered whenever Texas loaded Bevo back up to return him to Austin.
The 2024 rivalry week flag-planting epidemic leads to fights everywhere
Brawls during rivalries are obviously nothing new to the conversation. However, in 2024, it seemed like there were an inordinate number of fights that broke out in such instances, all of which stemmed from the home team getting more than a little upset about their rivals planting flags on their home turf, quite literally.
There is nothing I hate more than fake tough guy nonsense, and getting overly upset about flag-planting will always qualify as that in my book. At the same time, the fact that these weren’t just skirmishes but full-on fights makes 2024’s rivalry week worth mentioning here.
After Michigan beat Ohio State (again) in The Game, the Wolverines planted a big "M" flag in the middle of the O in Columbus, which sparked a big-time fight with the likes of Jack Sawyer in the heat of it. We also had North Carolina players fighting NC State players over the same thing, with one Tar Heel even javelin-ing the flag after it'd been planted. The same happened with Florida and Florida State. Arizona State planting a trident at Arizona even got tempers flaring.
Again, no one familiar with rivalries is a stranger to things getting heated. But the fact that planting flags and tridents led to so many altercations is just plain silly, especially that it all happened over the course of one week in the same season.
MIT’s exploding balloon prank halts Harvard-Yale
Why not finish off with a little three-way rivalry action. Harvard and Yale have been Ivy League foes since the dawn of time, and certainly the dawn of their football programs. The result has been endless pranks, most of which have been harmless. MIT has always tried to mess with both, however, and Harvard specifically, given their Massachusetts/Boston-area ties. So it's only fitting that MIT got the best of both football teams back in 1982.
Now, I'll admit, MIT "hacking" the Harvard-Yale game in itself is objectively hilarious. At the same time, it's hard to imagine what the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity pulled off that year flying in modern times. Just take a look.
Midway through the second quarter of the Harvard-Yale game, a big balloon with "MIT" written all over it began inflating near the sideline. The situation, even in 1982, even forced some of the security and officers in attendance to draw their guns, especially when the balloon became so big that it exploded.
Ultimately, no harm was done, the field was repaired, and the game continued. But can you just imagine what would happen if an unidentified object just appeared on the field at a college game these days? It certainly wouldn't be pretty, and I'd bet that the game would've taken much longer to resume. And with the benefit of hindsight, that's why it deserves a spot on this list.