Dr Pepper's Tuition Toss Was a Lot More Exciting Than Usual

Since 2008, Dr Pepper has been staging a halftime competition at Power 5 conference championship games in which the person who can get the most footballs into a massive Dr Pepper can wins a $100,000 scholarship. This year at the Big 12 championship game, the competition was "far more interesting" than the title game itself, Sports Illustrated reports. The "drama," per ESPN, started with a tiebreaker between Gavin White of Ohio State and Ryan Georgian of Penn State. When they appeared to tie again, a second tiebreaker was held, in which Georgian came out ahead. But fans took to social media to point out a scoring error in the first tiebreaker in which Georgian was apparently awarded an extra point that he did not actually score.

Before too much controversy could brew, the soda company announced it would award a $100,000 scholarship to both the participants, USA Today reports. "An on-field technical error resulted in an inaccurate accounting of the double tiebreaker," the beverage giant said in a statement. "As such, Dr Pepper will recognize both finalists as grand prize winners with both receiving the 100k award in tuition." The whole thing was pretty fun for fans; head to SI for a roundup of the best social media reactions. "The two students ... had one of the most epic, tightly-contested battles in the history of the event," declares Bleacher Report, which also offers a roundup of reactions. (More Dr Pepper stories.)