There’s Paul Bunyan’s axe, a live pig, a canon, a variety of gold-plated this and that. College football is known for its trophies, which range from pedestrian to bizarre to living and breathing—and many of them will be awarded this week.
Trophies are endlessly fun to analyze, to delve into histories and rank by any number of metrics. Two years ago on SI.com, we ranked 64 different prizes, from most to least unusual—which wouldn’t be so noteworthy, except that the strangest trophy in the game wasn’t mentioned once.
In the leadup to rivalry week, I started to investigate the Holy War, which is the name BYU and Utah would rather you not use to describe their Saturday-night matchup.