The Top 3 College Football Pranks of All Time

The Top 3 College Football Pranks of All Time
A comedy article by HenryHarveyComedyGod

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10/19/2010 08:55 PM 3448 views

Let's face it. Watching college football is pretty boring, unless these are your companions:

That's why students throughout history have spiced up the game with pranks. Here are the Top 3 College Football Pranks of All Time!

1) Iowa Sucks (And So Does Its Stadium Security)

Homecoming game, October 2005. Proud students, faculty, and alumni look out on the brand new $150,000 turf at University of Iowa's Kinnick Field.

Toward halftime, the word "Sucks" begins to appear like a mirage near Iowa's endzone. Over the next several days, the full message, "Iowa Sucks," is filled in. Apparently someone had infiltrated campus security several days before, and sprayed herbicide on the field.

The culprits might have been students from rival teams Eastern Illinois or Iowa State. Or maybe they were people who hate ethanol, high fructose corn syrup, or just corn in general. The message was kind of ambiguous.

2) MIT Wins Its First Football Game in History

How could the letters "MIT" (synonymous with brainy nerds) and "football" (synonymous with brawny jocks) ever go together? Only if they describe the legendary "MIT Football Hack," which even by MIT standards is one of the most complicated pranks that was ever successfully pulled off.

In November of 1982, during the annual Harvard-Yale game, a black balloon with the letters "MIT" suddenly sprung up midfield, and began inflating itself. As officials approached it warily, it grew bigger and bigger, and then exploded into white powder as the crowd went nuts.

MIT students from the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity pulled off this all-time legendary hack, which took years to plan, and eight secret trips to the field. The prank involved planting a Freon-driven hydraulic press and a vacuum cleaner motor tied into an electrical grid just below the surface of the field, which the students had to do while avoiding security guards, in the dead of night.

Here's what it looked like:

Here's the local news coverage. Back in 1982, completely awestruck local reporter Bob Lobel had to explain the meaning of the word "hack," since to most folks it only meant a crappy, sloppy writer.

Shut up, I know what you're going to say already.

Believe it or not, the original version of this stunt was attempted by MIT thirty-four years before this one. Probably right after the Harvard football team favored the "Dekes" with a series of atomic wedgies.

3) Harvard Agrees That Harvard Sucks

While not as high-tech as the MIT Hack, this prank excels due to its cleverness, smooth execution, and the huge amount of embarrassment it caused to thousands of people at the most elite university in the country.

In 2004, a group of undercover Yale students dressed themselves in "Harvard Pep Squad" T-shirts, and distributed crimson and white "pep cards" to fans at the Harvard-Yale game. The fans were instructed to display the cards on cue.

The cards supposedly spelled out "Go Harvard," when in fact they actually read "WE SUCK."

When the Yalies on the other side started chanting "You suck," Harvard fans retaliated by again showing off their "WE SUCK" cards. At least, it was good to see the two rivals agree with each other on something.

In the aftermath of the prank, a Harvard publication posted images that supposedly showed that pictures of the prank had been doctored by Yale.

Yale countered there were multiple "We Suck" placard barrages during the game.

So who really sucks? Harvard or Yale? Well, I went to Columbia, so I know that both of them suck.