Kansas State defeated North Carolina State on Thursday night in the Pop-Tarts Bowl, setting the stage for one of the more anticipated, hilarious and (somewhat) morbid celebrations in the history of this strange sport: the eating of the Pop-Tarts mascot.
Wildcats players chowed down on what Pop-Tarts hyped as the ‘first-ever Edible Mascot’ after their 28-19 victory in what was a fairly exciting game — each team successfully executed a fake punt, NC State running its fake in for a touchdown to cut its deficit to 21-19. But it couldn’t get the two-point conversion and Kansas State salted the game away with under three minutes to go after having two prior scores wiped out by penalties.
That gave the Wildcats the honor(?) of eating the Pop-Tarts mascot. Sort of.
In what was called ‘the moment we’ve all been waiting for’ by the PA announcer, the mascot — after chants of ‘toast that mascot!’ — was lowered into a giant ‘toaster’ while holding aloft a sign that read ‘dreams really do come true.’ Out came a giant edible Pop-Tart that K-State coach Chris Klieman and game MVP Avery Johnson dug into.
Presumably, the human version of the mascot disappeared somewhere inside the toaster as the giant Pop-Tart popped out. (At least we certainly hope.)
Before the incredible scene, the Wildcats also received the Pop-Tarts Bowl trophy, which, of course, featured real Pop-Tarts placed into the carved toaster slots. Those Pop-Tarts were promptly eaten, too.
The bowl, played at Orlando’s Camping World Stadium, spent the past three seasons as the Cheez-It Bowl and saw the winning coaches get a bucket-full of Cheez-Its dumped on them. There’s no denying that Pop-Tarts took things up a notch this year.