These 10 unique college football moments also deserve their own bobbleheads

Marshawn Lynch riding an injury cart isn't the only moment that needs to be memorialized in bobble statue form

By Tom Fornelli

Jul 28, 2016 at 1:49 pm ET • 7 min read

Cal announced this week that it will give away a bobblehead of former running back Marshawn Lynch driving an injury cart to fans in attendance for its game against Washington on Nov. 5. Simply put, it's a brilliant idea -- and awesome-looking bobblehead -- from a school filled with people smarter than I am.

Bobbleheads have been a popular giveaway at sports games for years now, but the majority of them just celebrate a particular player or coach. Truth is, there's no need to limit what bobbleheads can look like. After all, sports aren't just about the athletes who play them, but the moments those athletes create.

For many college football fans, the image of Lynch driving an injury cart on the field to celebrate a victory is one of the more memorable parts of his college career, and the bobblehead is an excellent way to preserve that moment forever.

Having been inspired by Cal's move, I've gone ahead and compiled a list of 10 other great moments in college football history that need their own bobblehead. Not great plays, or big wins, but moments -- things that don't necessarily happen on the field, yet are etched permanently into our cerebral cortex.

Here they are, in no particular order.

1. Urban Meyer eating pizza on a golf cart. Urban Meyer has had a lot of success as a college football coach, and plenty of it has come since he took over at Ohio State. In four seasons with the Buckeyes, he's gone 50-4 and won a national championship. But despite that success, there's one moment that truly stands out from Meyer's tenure in Columbus, Ohio.

It came following Ohio State's loss to Michigan State in the 2013 Big Ten Championship. The loss knocked Ohio State out of the No. 2 spot in the BCS, and Meyer chose to drown the sorrow over a missed title shot in stadium pizza.

Eating cold pizza in the bowels of Lucas Oil Stadium while seated on a golf cart: No one's idea of fun. pic.twitter.com/HMSSXLnDDr
— Patrick Brennan (@PBrennanENQ) December 8, 2013

2. Jameis Winston pushing crab legs in a Publix shopping cart. Winston was a very good football player at Florida State. He won a national title with the Seminoles. But Jameis seemed to garner a lot more attention for things he did off the field, and the headlines were seldom positive.

The most memorable was Winston shoplifting crab legs from a local Publix. Winston claimed it was all a misunderstanding, but what actually happened doesn't matter. Whether he knowingly stole the crab legs or not, it was still the Heisman Trophy winner heisting crab legs from a grocery store, and it needs a bobblehead.

3. LeGarrette Blount punching Boise State's Byron Hout. We have to go back to 2009 for this one, and some of you may not remember it. This was Chip Kelly's first season at Oregon, and the Ducks weren't quite the Ducks yet. It was early in the season and Boise State had beaten Oregon 19-8 in Boise. Broncos defensive lineman Byron Hout was celebrating the big win on the sideline, and he expressed his joy a bit too fervently for LeGarrett Blount's taste. Blount then let the world know what he thought about Hout's celebration when he delivered a sucker-punch for the ages.

Now, let us all imagine this moment in bobblehead form. Blount himself would be stationary, while Hout's head bobbles back and forth into his fist as if it's a speed bag. Who in their right mind wouldn't want this?

4. Ned to the rescue. On its own, the 2006 game between Miami and FIU should easily be forgotten, as Miami coasted to an easy 35-0 win. But it will never be forgotten because it featured quite the brawl.

Now, the brawl got out of hand, and you never really want to see anything like that happen on the field, but it also provided us with an indelible image.

Before Ned Stark, there was simply Ned.

Sure, Ned was on crutches, but that wasn't going to stop Ned from coming to the defense of his teammates. You may think discretion is the better part of valor, but Ned think's you're an idiot.

Ned is a hero. Ned doesn't leave anybody behind, no matter how bad things are for Ned.

Ned needs his own bobblehead.

5. The saddest Virginia fan. There might be some recency bias here, but Sad Virginia Fan needs his own bobblehead. It's not just the disappointment he felt after seeing his team blow a chance to upset Notre Dame thanks to a late Irish touchdown in the final seconds, it's the way he expresses his pain with his entire body.

Anybody can do the Surrender Cobra. Simply shaking your head while muttering "nooooo" to yourself is for amateurs. Sad Virginia Fan expressed everything he was going through in a way that would make Daniel Day-Lewis proud.

6. Eric Dickerson's Gold Trans-Am. All right, so maybe this isn't a moment per se, but it's part of college football lore if nothing else.

While in high school, Dickerson was one of the top recruits in the country, and Texas A&M wanted him badly, as did other schools. Well, according to urban legend, Dickerson suddenly began driving a gold Trans-Am during his senior year of high school. Dickerson said it was a gift from his aunt.

Throwback Thursday! Since everyone was talking about what my Grandma bought me, here ya go. #TBT pic.twitter.com/Bicz1XLTL0
— Eric Dickerson (@EricDickerson) August 8, 2013

Dickerson committed to Texas A&M, but on National Signing Day he announced he was going to SMU instead, and the gold Trans-Am was suddenly gone.

What's true here and isn't doesn't matter, as the legend is basically public record and accepted at this point. So I think we all need a bobblehead of Dickerson driving his gold Trans-Am like we do of Lynch driving the injury cart. Maybe one of the tail lights can be smashed in thanks to an angry Aggie.

7. Les Miles eating grass. Miles has always been a little off, and he's always been loved (for the most part) because of it. Still, of all the strange things the Mad Hatter has ever done during his time at LSU, none will ever be more memorable than the time he was caught eating grass on the sideline of LSU's game against Alabama in 2014.

For the bobblehead, I'm thinking we do more of a bobble-jaw. The figurine can have Les holding the grass to his mouth while the lower jaw bobbles up and down to simulate chewing.

8. Cam Newton defenestrating a laptop. Before he went on to win a national title at Auburn and NFL MVP award with the Carolina Panthers, Cam Newton was a kid at Florida in need of a laptop. The problem was Cam couldn't afford a laptop, so he allegedly stole one from a classmate in his dorm.

Then, when police came to Newton's room to investigate what happened, Cam allegedly threw the laptop out of his window. Because if he couldn't have it, nobody could.

This is probably exactly what it looked like, uniform and all. CBS Sports Graphic

This was a major moment in college football history because it was one of a few bad decisions that led to Newton's "transfer" from Florida to Blinn College and eventual second transfer to Auburn. (Now that we think about it, that Mississippi State-Auburn transfer controversy could have its own bobblehead, too.) I'm not totally sure how the bobblehead would work for this one, but it simply needs to be made.

9. Minnesota assistant eating a Dilly Bar in the snow. Everybody loves bobbleheads. Many people love snow globes. What if we combined the two?

The perfect opportunity for this technological breakthrough -- that would surely change the world for the better -- would be Minnesota assistant Dan Lehman eating a Dilly Bar on the sidelines in a game against Ohio State. Lehman was caught on camera talking to a Gophers player on the sideline while partaking in the pleasures of the great Dilly Bar. That in itself isn't too strange, but the fact that it was snowing and 15 degrees makes the choice of ice cream a bit questionable.

But we have to respect a man who knows what he wants, when he wants it, weather be damned.

So I propose we honor Lehman by creating a bobblehead of him eating the Dilly Bar and then placing that inside a snow globe so we can get the full experience.

10. Stanford band member being run over in the end zone. It's one of the most historic events in college football history. Stanford leads Cal 20-19 following a field goal with four seconds left and thinks it has won the game on the ensuing kickoff. Even the band comes on the field to celebrate, and that's when things go off the rails.

As amazing as it all is, for me, the seminal moment of the whole thing is when Stanford trombone player Gary Tyrrell gets destroyed by Cal's Kevin Moen in the end zone. That one moment says everything you need to know about the chaos that had just been unleashed upon the football field.