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The best rivalry pranks in college football history.
College football rivalries are what make the sport great. Team affiliation can split families. Friendships are lost one week each year for those on opposite sides of border wars.
Rivalries provide bragging rights to the winning program. Most are rich in history and tradition, with series spanning longer than a century in some cases.
Included in those histories are both on-field results and off-field shenanigans. Rivalries spread far beyond the teams themselves. They are embedded within the culture of each university. Pride is on the line. Failure is not an option!
College football players look to beat their most-hated opponents on the gridiron. Fans, meanwhile, seek to embarrass their counterparts away from it.
18 Of The Best College Football Pranks.
I’ve done some research to find 18 of the most calculated pranks formulated by passionate fans. I dropped a few fails in for a good laugh, too.
The mischief spans from coast to coast and conference to conference. No program is safe. There are a few schools that appear on the list multiple times, for better or for worse. There’s even one that has no football team at all!
Let’s start with the “pranks gone wrong” before diving into the ones that worked.
Fails
Rutgers steals the wrong cannon
Rutgers and Princeton played the first college football game in 1869. Six years later, the Cannon Wars began. Rutgers attempted to steal a cannon from the Princeton campus as they say it was wrongfully confiscated years earlier.
Students hopped a train, hired a buggy driver to aid in their mission, and began digging the cannon up. After successfully slipping out of town undetected, it was determined that they took the wrong item.
A recreation of the Cannon Wars took place in 1946. Again, it resulted in a failed trip.
Baylor Bear shreds Aggies
Baylor has a history with live mascots, keeping bears on campus at the Bill and Eva Williams Bear Habitat. In the 1950s, Texas A&M fans attempted to take a cub from Waco.
They succeeded in getting the bear into their car, which happened to be a newly purchased ride of one of the thieves’ parents. The cub got spooked on its Texas road trip and proceeded to shred the back seat. It was released and found a day later near College Station.
Iowa can’t get the goalposts
This is less a prank and more a sheer sign of disrespect. After walloping rival Minnesota on the road, Iowa fans stormed the field and tore out the goalposts. The win capped a perfect season in Big Ten play. Hawkeye fans provided the first “L.”
After ripping the posts from their place behind the endzone, the group attempted to escort the souvenir out of the stadium. Unfortunately, there was no clear exit.
After moments of aimlessly walking around the field, the mission was effectively abandoned, though one portion of the goalposts may or may not have been successfully transported back to Iowa City.
Manure hits the fan
The USC-UCLA has produced some great pranks, some of which you’ll soon read about. This was not one of them. In 1958, members of the Bruins student base tried to dump manure from a helicopter onto a USC campus statue.
Unfortunately, much of the manure was sucked into rotor blades upon takeoff, covering the UCLA cohorts.
The Best College Football Pranks
Army steals Navy’s goat
This is one of the oldest and most replicated pranks in college football. It’s an Army tradition to steal the Navy goat. The first occurrence came in 1953. Since, “Bill” has been taken on numerous occasions.
In response, Navy has kidnapped Army’s mule with one of the most recent successes coming in 1991. Mascot theft was banned by the Pentagon a year later.
There have been a few slips from the Black Knights in recent seasons. In both 2021 and 2025, they stole the wrong goat.
Georgia Tech trainwreck
In 1896 before a game between Auburn and Georgia Tech, Tiger students greased the railroad tracks on which the Yellow Jackets were arriving. The train slid five miles past its destination.
Georgia Tech players were forced to walk back to the train stop. Auburn thumped the Yellow Jackets upon their return, 45-0.
Gamecocks imitate Clemson
Clemson and South Carolina have a football rivalry that dates back over a century. The series is intense on and off the field. There have been brawls, and even a postgame bayonet standoff that halted the rivalry for seven years.
The best prank, however, came in 1961. Members of a South Carolina fraternity borrowed uniforms from a local high school football team that resembled Clemson. They took the field before the real teams made their way from the locker room for pre-game warmups.
The Clemson band played the fight song and fans cheered while “players” performed acts like milking cows, somersaulting, and mishandling punts while looking entirely inept running football drills. Clemson fans attempted to storm onto the field in disgust. The Gamecocks won the game, 21-14.
Harvard sucks
Yale students posed as a Harvard pep squad and handed out signs to the Crimson fanbase during a 2004 rivalry matchup. Fans were led to believe a message of support was to read, “Go Harvard.” They quickly learned otherwise.
When the signs were turned over, they spelled out “We Suck.” Yale students mocked their opponent with chants from the opposing sideline.
Bevo branded
Bevo, the live mascot of the Texas Longhorns, is one of the most recognized mascots in college football. After a 13-0 win in 1915, Texas A&M students branded the bull with the game’s final score.
It’s one of many off-field shenanigans organized by the Aggies, some of which you’ll see later on this list.
This rivalry dates back to the 1890s with Texas owning a wide series lead. Texas A&M got the last laugh in this particular instance.
Longhorns return the favor
This theft made national headlines, and its offenders faced legal threats. Texas students calling themselves “The Rustlers” dognapped Aggies mascot Reveille in December of 1993.
The pup was stolen from the backyard of its handler, who was a corporal in the school’s Corps of Cadets. Charges of trespassing, unlawful entry and felony stolen property were filed.
Reveille was found five days later in good condition near Austin.
Wisconsin hides its trophy
Wisconsin and Minnesota played annually for the “Slab of Bacon” trophy between 1930 and 1943. After a Wisconsin win that final season, it was “lost.”
Fifty years later, it was found in a storage closet on the Madison campus, with scores updated through 1970. Then-Badgers coach Barry Alvarez joked, “We took home the bacon, and kept it.”
Now, the schools compete for Paul Bunyon’s Axe, a trophy that had an opportunity to be “stolen” from the sidelines of the winning team up through 2014.
Cal on the mic
Cal and Stanford have an intense rivalry, as well as a history of off-field pranks. In 1997, a Cal student attended every Cardinal home game with one intention.
He hacked into the Stanford Stadium sound system used by referees. He then got on the mic to announce a penalty. “Excessive arrogance; Stanford sucks!”
You’ll see this rivalry reappear in a few moments.
USC pulls prank of the year
Pranks are synonymous with these Los Angeles based schools, some of which include defacing statues on the rival campus, as well as the previously mentioned manure fail.
In 1957, the Trojans pulled of what was dubbed the prank of the year by Sports Illustrated. Similar to the Yale-Harvard deception, USC handed out cards to the UCLA students’ section. When they were flipped over, an SC logo appeared in the corner above UCLA lettering.
The Bruins were unaware of the hoax. They flipped the cards 26 times throughout the game!
Florida State swipes live gator
This annual battle between SEC and ACC rivals is one of the fiercest both on and off the field. That was on full display when Florida State students kidnapped Albert II.
In the 1950s, Florida had a live gator as its mascot. That did not stop the Seminoles from tomfoolery. They snuck onto campus and into Century Hall where a pen around the building housed the reptile. They successfully swiped the mascot from the pit.
Florida discontinued its use of live mascots not long after.
Hoo has the Rice Owl?
Rice and Texas A&M played annually on the football field from 1914 through 1995. And while it’s only been played twice since, Lone Star State rivals once despised one another.
In 1973, for example, the Rice marching band was held captive for two hours by Aggie fan after an Owls win. And while this next prank came after a basketball game, it qualifies for this list given the football team’s involvement.
In 1917, Aggie cadets stole Rice’s mascot and shipped it back to College Station where it was forced to take part in TAMU traditions. Rice hired detectives to find the fake bird. It was later discovered at the campus armory.
Rice students drove to the school. Five football players rammed the door open, secured the mascot, and started a highway chase back to Houston. The players’ car broke down with Texas A&M cadets in pursuit. They burned the mascot’s innards as to keep it from recapture.
USC mascot stabs itself in the back
Tommy Trojan is often taped up during rivalry week to prevent vandalism at the hands of rival students. In this instance, blue and gold paint was the least of Tommy’s worries.
UCLA students have often stolen the statue’s sword in their never-ending prank war. This ruse went a step further.
The Bruins removed Tommy’s sword-wielding arm before welding it back on to appear as if he was stabbing himself in the back. These days, the statue is kept under strict surveillance to avoid a repeat occurrence.
Stanford Tree held hostage
Stanford has one of the weirdest yet most recognizable mascots in college football. In 1998, the Stanford Tree was held hostage by Cal students that dubbed themselves the Phoenix Five.
Bears fraternity members, under the pseudonyms Mr. Black, Mr. Green, Mr. Orange, Mr. White, and Mr. Yellow, camped out at a campus event and tracked tree. After its capture, they held the 10-foot-tall costume “hostage” for two weeks.
It was paraded in front of cameras blindfolded. Letters were written, supposedly from the tree, talking about how wonderful the world was outside the Stanford campus. It was later returned to avoid serious punishment. Stanford shredded the costume at halftime of its rivalry game due to “contamination.”
The reaction to the heist by school administrators fueled a frenzy of media coverage which resulted in the prank being regarded as one of the most famous and notable in the history of the rivalry.
Tulane steals Mike the Tiger
Four Tulane students stole LSU’s 500-pound live mascot in New Orleans in 1950. The offenders were banned from the Baton Rouge campus for the next 50 years.
The Tigers and Green Wave were set to play at the Sugar Bowl. The students saw the mascot on their way back to campus after a night hunting. Despite being stopped by police with the Tiger, they succeeded in their mission by giving a false story. Eventually, the abduction was reported, and Mike was returned to his rightful owners.
Arizona petitioned to Mexico
In 2015, a group of Arizona State students posed as petitioners and convinced Arizona counterparts to support fake legislation to send the university into Mexico’s possession.
A convincing pitch helped pull off the con. They proposed that Arizona was built on stolen land. They succeeded in grabbing a few signatures, as well as a laugh on rivalry week.
The Play didn’t count
Arguably the most popular play in college football history didn’t count… At least that’s what angry Stanford fans wanted Cal students to believe after the fact.
The day after the win, the Cardinal created a fake edition of The Daily Cal claiming the result of the game was overturned. They distributed the editions all over Berkeley and watched as some readers bought the hoax.
That, of course, was not the case, but it provided some semblance of revenge following the most controversial ending in the series’ history.
The smart kids win
MIT was not involved in this particular matchup as it didn’t have a varsity team at the time. That did not prevent the Engineers from trolling a pair of Ivy League rivals.
In 1982, Brothers at the DKE house at MIT snuck into Harvard Stadium eight times before a Harvard-Yale game, planted a freon-driven hydraulic balloon device, and wired it into the electrical grid under the field.
During the game, they deployed and exploded a black balloon with the letters “MIT” written on it.
Cal Tech football?
Cal Tech no longer has a college football program. Still, it was able to pull off the sport’s most memorable hoax on the biggest of stages.
Washington played Minnesota at the 1961 Rose Bowl. A national championship was on the line. Cal Tech students broke into the locker room where the Washington cheerleaders kept equipment, changed the papers with directions for flip cards, and replaced them.
Washington’s ensuing halftime routine was littered with Cal Tech promotions. One showed the image of a beaver as opposed to a husky, the school’s official mascot. Another was displayed a completely illegible message. The crowned jewel came in the form of the words Cal Tech flashing across the top of the stadium, a moment that sparked mass confusion on the Washington sideline.
It is maybe the most epic of all pranks given the national stage.