College Football Rivalry Trophies and Their Backstories

You flip on a November game and the winning team is sprinting across the field to grab an axe, a bronze pig or a battered water jug. If you did not grow up in that state, it looks ridiculous. Then you hear the backstory and it suddenly makes perfect sense.

College football rivalry trophies are some of the strangest objects in American sport, and nearly every one of them started as an accident, a prank or a dare between two schools that already disliked each other. Here are the stories behind the best ones, what they say about the rivalries themselves, and why they matter more now than they did twenty years ago.

The oldest college football rivalry trophies

The Little Brown Jug: Michigan vs Minnesota

In 1903, Michigan coach Fielding Yost travelled to Minneapolis and did not trust the local water, so his staff bought a five-gallon earthenware jug for about 30 cents. The game ended in a 6-6 tie, and in the chaos at the end Michigan left the jug behind. A Minnesota equipment manager, Oscar Munson, found it, painted the score on it, and the Gophers kept it. When Michigan asked for it back, Minnesota told them to come win it. From 1909 onward the two teams played for it, which makes it widely recognised as the oldest trophy game in major college football.

The Territorial Cup: Arizona vs Arizona State

The Territorial Cup dates to 1899, when Arizona was still a territory and Arizona State was the Tempe Normal School. It is a small silver cup, and for decades it was lost entirely before it resurfaced in the 1980s. The NCAA has recognised it as the oldest rivalry trophy in college football, even though the schools did not compete for it continuously.

Trophies that came from the fans

Paul Bunyan's Axe: Wisconsin vs Minnesota

Wisconsin and Minnesota first played in 1890, making it the most played rivalry in top-level college football. From 1930 they competed for a slab of bacon carved from black walnut. That trophy went missing in the 1940s, and in 1948 the axe replaced it. The handle lists every score, and the winners carry it to the goalposts and pretend to chop them down.

The Stanford Axe: Stanford vs Cal

The Stanford Axe started as a yell-leader prop at a Stanford baseball rally in 1899. Cal fans grabbed it, and it spent three decades in Berkeley vaults. In 1930 a group of Stanford students, later called the Immortal 21, staged a heist to take it back. Since 1933 the axe has gone to the winner of the Big Game, with the score painted on its plaque.

The Victory Bell: UCLA vs USC

The 295-pound bell came from a Southern Pacific locomotive and was a gift to UCLA from its alumni. In 1941 a group of USC students took it. A year of escalating pranks followed until the schools agreed in 1942 to make it the prize for their annual game. The winner paints it in their own colour, blue or cardinal.

Trophies born from a promise between governors

Floyd of Rosedale might be the best story of the lot. Before the 1935 Iowa vs Minnesota game, racial tension around Iowa's star halfback Ozzie Simmons had both fan bases on edge. To calm things down, Minnesota Governor Floyd B. Olson promised Iowa Governor Clyde Herring a prize hog if Iowa won, and Herring promised one back. Minnesota won 13-6, and Herring delivered a pig from Rosedale Farms, named Floyd after Olson.

The real pig did not last long, so the schools commissioned a bronze statue about 21 inches long and 15 inches tall. That is what the teams still play for.

A quick reference guide

A couple of these deserve a note. The Old Oaken Bucket was pulled from a well on a southern Indiana farm, and every result is added as a bronze link shaped like an I or a P. The Golden Egg was created after a fight broke out over the goalposts at the 1926 game, with school leaders hoping a trophy would give fans something to celebrate instead. And the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy is unusual because three teams compete for it, with the winner traditionally received at the White House.

The counter-take: realignment did not kill these rivalries

The popular line since the conference shuffles of 2024 is that realignment destroyed the traditional rivalry. I covered how deep those changes went in how conference realignment reshaped college football rivalries, and some long series really did end or go on pause.

But the trophy games have proved tougher than people expected. Several of them live inside the same conference and were never at risk. Others, like the Apple Cup between Washington and Washington State, carried on as nonconference games after the schools ended up in different leagues. The Iowa vs Iowa State Cy-Hawk Trophy has been a nonconference game for decades and draws as much attention as ever.

The trophy is a big part of why. Athletic directors under pressure from fans can drop a random nonconference opponent without anyone noticing. Dropping a game with a century-old jug or axe attached generates angry phone calls for years. The physical object gives the series a weight that a simple schedule entry never would.

Why trophies matter more in the playoff era

With the expanded College Football Playoff, a lot of fans worried that regular season games would lose meaning. Rivalry trophies push the other way. A 4-7 team that has no route to a bowl can still salvage its year by taking the Bucket or the Jug home, and players remember those wins long after the standings are forgotten.

For neutral viewers, the trophy is the easiest way into an unfamiliar game. If you are channel surfing on rivalry weekend and see a team sprint toward a sideline table, that is your cue to stay. It also helps to know the tiebreak rules, since several trophy games have gone to extra periods; our guide to college football overtime rules explains how those finishes work now.

Frequently asked questions

What is the oldest trophy in college football?

The Territorial Cup between Arizona and Arizona State dates to 1899 and is recognised by the NCAA as the oldest rivalry trophy. The Little Brown Jug between Michigan and Minnesota is often called the oldest continuous trophy game, first contested for in 1909.

What happens to a rivalry trophy after a tie?

Under old rules, ties were common and most trophies stayed with the team that held them. Since overtime arrived in college football in 1996, ties no longer happen. The Old Oaken Bucket even had a special combined IP link for its tied games.

Why is Floyd of Rosedale a pig?

The trophy comes from a 1935 promise between the governors of Iowa and Minnesota to hand over a prize hog to the winning state. Minnesota won, the hog was named Floyd after Minnesota's governor, and a bronze statue replaced the live animal.