Dr Pepper awards two $100,000 grants to correct the halftime blunder
Saturday night’s Big 12 Championship game between the Texas Longhorns and the Oklahoma State Cowboys provided the kind of controversial barn burner that inspires legions of college football fans to pack stadiums and jam sports bars every weekend.
But the real competition, as it turned out, did not take place between the football teams (Texas won no less than 1 one-sided 49-21 affair), but between two students participating in the Dr Pepper Tuition Giveaway challenge at halftime, a college football tradition.
Each student had to throw as many footballs as possible into the Dr Pepper-branded trash bin five yards away within the allotted time.
Ryan Georgian, a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania, and Gavin White, a junior at Ohio State University, were each tied at 10 points at the end of regulation, forcing overtime.
They each had a 15-second window to take the lead for the win.
At the whistle they dug into their stash of footballs and threw them from chest height towards the opening in the box, each miss ricocheting off the goal with force, like corn popping in a cauldron.
At the last second, Georgian tied the score at 16, forcing a sudden-death shootout in a second overtime period.
Georgian was going to win, but fans were quick to point out there was a problem.
The game shouldn’t have gone to double overtime, fans complained, and Dr Pepper later acknowledged this.
A review of the video showed that Georgian only added five points to his score in the first period. He was credited with six, enough to force the tie.
Online, the college football world was roaring. Fans cried foul and begged the soft drink giant to do the same serve “justice for Gavin.”
Not long after, Dr Pepper said it would rectify the situation.
“In a dramatic double OT Dr Pepper Tuition Giveaway during the Big 12 Conference championship game, an on-court technical foul resulted in an inaccurate accounting of the double tiebreaker,” the company said. in a statement, who didn’t elaborate on what went wrong.
“As such, Dr Pepper will recognize both finalists as winners of the grand prizes, with both receiving the $100,000 in tuition assistance,” the statement continued.
White asked questions to Dr Pepper’s PR team, but Georgian could not be reached.
In video pitches submitted to Dr Pepper, the students advocated for a chance to compete for the grant.
The judges selected the participants based on their video submissions, using a rubric that assessed their goals and financial needs.
Georgian, a businessman, said the tuition would help him achieve his goal to become a social entrepreneur, while paying for his sister’s school fees and treatment for her rare blood disease.
For his part, White, an aspiring meteorologist, used weather forecast charts to paint a picture bleak prospects for his student debt: rising out-of-state tuition, pesky loans, and high interest rates.
“This fair could bring some sunshine to take away some of this bad weather,” he said.
Fans online celebrated what they saw as a just outcome, with some taking credit for putting pressure on Dr Pepper.
“Jokes aside, I think our tweets forced Dr Pepper’s hand,” wrote one fan. “Thank you to everyone who contributed and spread the word.”
Jack Begg contributed research.