Game day last Saturday morning began with a goblet of “championship water” in the hotel lobby. When the team bus hissed open, his seat awaited. A credential swung from his carrier as his security guard parted the crowd.
As a visitor to Louisville’s stadium, he settled in amid the comforts of his own makeshift locker room. By kickoff, he slinked past flocks of fans wearing T-shirts with his face plastered across the front, lapping in the roars while social media feeds combusted.
After the final whistle, he charmed the media and sniffed through invitations that included a Kentucky Derby request. Following a four-hour drive home, he called it a night — sprawling on the couch, paw-deep in a bowl of snacks, watching his pixelated self on EA Sports’ college football video game.
That’s a day in the life of Bowling Green football’s star, who doesn’t — and can’t — pass, catch, block or tackle. But Pudge the Cat, a smoosh-faced exotic shorthair with the scowl of a grumpy coordinator, has napped, noshed and nuzzled his way into program lore and become catnip to college football fans, perched atop the sport like a king surveying his kingdom.
Pudge first padded into the Falcons’ locker room in the dog days of preseason camp. Senior long snapper George Carlson brought his 3-year-old pet in the day after a teammate’s injury left spirits sagging. The cat’s deadpan face turned gloom into grins. Ever since, pug-nosed Pudge can be found perched in lockers, cradled in Carlson’s arms and even fronting Bowling Green’s marketing machine. He asks for nothing more than scratches behind the ears, a bottomless supply of treats and a nap unbothered by camera flashes … the latter of which he’s still chasing.
“When he first came in, everybody was like, ‘What? There’s a cat in the locker room?’” said Falcons wide receiver Finn Hogan. “And then within two weeks, you’d walk by and be like, ‘What up, Pudge?’ And just keep walking. It became so normal for us.”
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It was Hogan who first posted a TikTok video during preseason practices captioned, “Fall camp so rough we got a locker room cat” that lit Pudge’s viral fuse.
Hogan’s Instagram and TikTok videos of Pudge have combined for up to 5 million views. What began as a locker-room gag — which alone has 254,000 likes as of Thursday — skyrocketed within days. Before Bowling Green’s opening game against Lafayette, Pudge had popped on ABC and CNN. By the end of Week 1, the school estimated more than a billion people had encountered the football program, much of it thanks to a cat.
For Carlson, his cat’s fame barely scratches the surface of what Pudge’s company means. Pudge was a living fragment of his Chicago-area home that accompanied him across state lines, curling close after the hardest summer of his life.
George Carlson’s cat helped him get through the toughest time of his life. (Courtesy of Ty Hundley / BGSU Athletics)
Carlson lost his mother, Cristen, to Stage 4 ovarian cancer on July 29, 2024. She was the voice Carlson dialed without fail, the presence that calmed him through the monotony of long-snapping drills and the solitude of special teams life. When she was gone, silence pressed in on him from every angle — broken only by the improbable purr of a smoosh-faced cat.
“George was really able to take a piece of my mom with him to school and have that reminder that she’s always watching over him,” said George’s sister, Avery. “We all see a little bit of my mom in Pudge every time we look at him.”
Pudge, plucked from a South Chicago breeder in 2023, became Cristen’s last great gesture. Avery remembers their mother insisting on a shorthair, George’s favorite breed, believing the cat would comfort George when she no longer could.
“Cristen was always just pro-George,” said George’s dad, Jim, who is a veterinarian. “She helped him with everything — not just football. … (His mom’s death) was really difficult for him because of the relationship they had.”
After Cristen’s passing, Carlson’s house in Bowling Green threatened to swallow him whole with its silence. But when he cracked the door each night, the hollow never had a chance to settle. Pudge stationed at the doorway, tail flicking like a conductor’s baton, keeping grief at bay.
“If I didn’t have Pudge, if I couldn’t come home to him,” Carlson said, “I don’t think I would have made it.”
The routine turned into salvation by repetition. Carlson shrugged off his bag, slumped onto the couch, and Pudge would clamber up his chest and slump across his torso. Some nights he pawed at the string of Carlson’s shorts; on others he folded into the crook of his arm, revving up a purr that vibrated like a lullaby.
“That cat would do anything — move heaven and earth — for George if it meant making him happy,” Avery said.
Once Carlson, who has been on scholarship at Bowling Green since 2022 and earned a degree in individualized business, ushered him in to lighten camp’s toil, Pudge lolled across gear bags. He wedged into empty lockers or climbed atop laundry carts, taking on a unique role as Bowling Green’s 108th roster member.
“He helps people get their minds off of the tough day and the long weeks we go through,” said Hogan, who is allergic to cats, yet still willingly welcomes Pudge.
Falcons cornerback Jalen McClendon’s first experience with a cat when he was younger went horribly off-script, as a babysitter’s gold-eyed feline scratched him raw.
“Pudge helped me see a different version of a cat,” McClendon said. “He just brings a different type of light. … Pudge makes you feel at home. I can be relaxed, like, ‘Pudge, what’s up?’ And for dudes, those small interactions can make a guy’s day.”
Eddie George, the 1995 Heisman Trophy winner turned Bowling Green head coach, is also allergic to cats. But sneezes and watery eyes weren’t enough for him to exile the furrowed little emperor who earned full diplomatic immunity. And became a sensational college mascot.
“Once you see the attention, you lean into it,” said Taylor Jefferson, Bowling Green’s director of marketing.
Lean in, they did.
Soon, Pudge cruised in his own “Catmobile” — a golf cart tricked out with whiskers and ears — parading through tailgates like Falcons royalty. He headlined “Pudge Parties,” where his flattened face turned into campus currency in the form of hoodies, buttons, stickers, selfies and even sorority invites.
In just about three weeks after launching his Instagram page, Pudge generated 1.3 million Instagram impressions. His shadow stretched wide, with Bowling Green football’s X account doubling last year’s engagement in August alone, according to assistant athletic director for strategic communications Vincent Briedis.
Since then, Bowling Green’s Monday marketing meetings have revolved around Pudge, working with the Carlsons to develop a health and safety plan that accompanies Pudge as he attends games, home and away. The Falcons sit 2-2 on the season after stunning Liberty 23-13 and flashing fight against Cincinnati and Louisville.
“People think this is the best thing that’s happened to college football,” Briedis said. “You see the pet that is as endearing as Pudge … it’s part of the pageantry of college football. You don’t see locker room animals in the NFL. … People that have no ties to Bowling Green, no ties to the Mid-American Conference, they’re loving it.”
Pudge the Cat has even traveled to away games this season. (Courtesy of Ty Hundley / BGSU Athletics)
Pudge has even clawed his way into a name, image and likeness empire. It started with Influxer, a clothing brand that specializes in NIL, selling 104 Pudge T-shirts in about 10 days for $720, with Carlson reaping the returns. Carlson also has his own line for Pudge, which moved more than 100 shirts in just 27 hours, with part of the proceeds going to the Humane Society of Wood County, a nonprofit shelter and adoption center serving Northwest Ohio.
Soon, Carlson’s inbox was jammed with offers from cat food giants Temptations and Purina, Churchill Downs and even a 20,000-person Cat Expo in Cleveland, where Carlson is projected to pocket more than $4,000.
EA Sports even added Pudge to the video game as a card that boosts toughness.
The fame isn’t just corporate. Two weeks ago, The Clay Pot Bistro in Bowling Green served him a catnip mocktail, a lobster and salmon entrée and a whipped-cream dessert.
“He eats 100 percent when he’s awake,” Carlson said. “Every single time, he’s going to the food bowl. He’ll be playing with his ping pong ball, go to food. He’ll wake up from sleep, food. … He’ll stick his whole face into the bowl, he’s just an oddball.”
When the video game avatar powers down and the last crumb is licked from his bowl, Pudge finally claims his reward: burrowing next to Carlson and dozing off to sleep, tucked away from the spotlight at last.
And in that quiet — George tucking in his best friend before another day of cat mania — the absurdity of college football’s strangest star softens into something simpler.
“My mom,” Avery said, “is really somewhere losing her mind right now.”
(Top photo courtesy of Bowling Green Marketing & Brand Strategy)