There's a candlelight vigil for the Pop-Tart mascot at ACC Kickoff because the conference appreciates its one true savior

Rest easy, sweet prince. You are in our hearts.

Michigan winning a national title? That was nice. But any true football fan will readily admit one moment from the 2023 college football postseason was the arrival and prompt destruction of a life-sized Pop-Tart.

Last winter was the backdrop to the world’s first Pop-Tarts Bowl, a game that pit the Kansas State Wildcats against the North Carolina State Wolfpack for something more than just bragging rights. The winner got to eat the mascot, a glorious, seven-foot anthropomorphic Pop-Tart, which was cooked in front of a raucous crowd demanding a strawberry filling sacrifice. The world stood in raw wonder as the willing martyr slowly descended into the bowels of an oversized toaster, only to slide out the bottom to be promptly devoured by the victorious Wildcats.

Folks at this year’s ACC Kickoff, the conference’s official start to the 2024 football season, promised this sacrifice would not be forgotten.

Candlelight vigil at ACC Kickoff for the sentient boxed breakfast pastry. It’s too much. pic.twitter.com/TGMgXWCukQ

— Andrew Carter (@_andrewcarter) July 25, 2024

This, of course, leaves questions. Is the Pop-Tart ascending to heaven, or jumping into the toaster with the blessing of a higher power? What did his sacrifice give the world, aside from one giant, gruesome pastry destroying scene? And how many people have stopped to genuflect at the altar of the breakfast world’s one true savior?

These are all quandaries too big for one man to answer. Except the last one, I guess. You could probably just watch for a while and write down a total. Anyway, Pop-Tarts move in mysterious ways, and it’s not up to us to divine why but to understand there’s a music underneath it all, just waiting for us to hear it.