In October, Patrick and I had a Halloween party to attend. The theme was “my guilty pleasure” and my only idea was to dress as generic characters from a romance novel.

At the same time, Spirit Halloween started selling Pop-Tarts Bowl mascot costumes and Patrick didn’t need an excuse to buy one, but it would be nice.

The question arose: how hard would it be to make a Tubby costume? You know, the deranged maybe-prey-animal anthropomorphic tub of Duke’s Mayonnaise?

I love an engineering challenge in the form of a sewing project and we attended this party as the mascots of our favorite meme-able college football bowl games.

Patrick and I dressed as Tubby, the Duke's Mayonnaise mascot, and Strawberry, the original Pop-Tarts Bowl mascot.

We posted this to Twitter, it got a fair bit of attention, and the Duke’s Mayo Bowl people liked it so much they invited us to the game!

I had been wanting to try sports photography (football in particular) for a while so I got up the courage to ask if I could photograph the game. They said yes! (Patrick shot it too; his album is here.)

The story to tell

The Charlotte Sports Foundation content team wanted us to focus on capturing the fan experience. What is it like to attend the Duke’s Mayo Bowl as a fan?

What fun and weird stuff do you encounter? Will anyone say no if you hand them a jar of mayonnaise and ask them to eat it? (Spoiler: no.)

I received one excellent piece of advice: always try to avoid empty seats in photos to make the game look popular and well-attended (though it was!).

Fanfest

We started the day at Fanfest outside the stadium, trying to both enjoy the festivities and capture them. All while wearing my giant Tubby hat, of course.

Minnesota and Virginia Tech football fans were there for their teams, but they were also there for the mayonnaise.

a Virginia Tech fan wearing a foam Duke's Mayonnaise hat at the 2025 Duke's Mayo Bowl Fanfest

At the game

Mascots

Tubby was, of course, one of the stars of the show. Goldy, the Minnesota Golden Gophers mascot, was also really fun to photograph.

I really wanted more shots of HokieBird, but I was pretty much confined to one end zone because I had recently had foot surgery and couldn’t walk around much. HokieBird didn’t come over to my side of the field very often.

Fans

The fans really went all-out for this one! Bowl games are so much fun and I think the fact that it was this bowl game made it extra special.

three women wearing Minnesota Golden Gophers onesies looking really happy

Mayonnaise

Like I said before, fans at this game will not say no if you give them mayonnaise and tell them to eat it while you photograph them.

Well, maybe they would say no if it was Hellman’s. 🤢

This guy gets an honorable mention for drinking beer out of a mayo jar that he must have brought from home just for this occasion.

The mayo bath

In a time-honored tradition, the coach of the winning team of the Duke’s Mayo Bowl is doused in 4.5 gallons of delicious, twangy Duke’s Mayonnaise (not an ad; just a fan).

It was highly competitive to get a spot behind the rope line to photograph this esteemed event. I used my 100-500mm lens and was really glad I did because I think shooting tight made it easier to shoot through the crowd of other photographers and TV people.

It was a bit like shooting through the branches at a bird, honestly!

This means I shot portraits instead of others’ full-body shots, but I like my results.

I printed this one, framed it, and gave it a place of honor on the shelf behind my chair that my coworkers see when I’m on Zoom calls with them.

Game action shots

Even though my focus was on the fan experience, I couldn’t resist shooting some game action.

I had to limit how much I walked due to recent foot surgery, which meant I had to stay in one end zone most of the time and couldn’t move quickly to catch something that was about to happen. Unfortunately for me (but fortunately for Minnesota fans), Minnesota dominated this game thoroughly, while usually playing toward the opposite end zone from me. I kept hoping Virginia Tech would do something so I could get a touchdown shot.

Alas, it was not to be.

Regardless, I still got some photos I’m very happy with! Here are just a few of my favorites.

In conclusion

Shooting the Duke’s Mayo Bowl was an incredible experience. I definitely caught the football photography bug and I am going to do my best to get on the sidelines of more games in upcoming seasons.

You can view my entire gallery of photos from the 2025 Duke’s Mayo Bowl here.

Photographing the Duke’s Mayo Bowl