When Pudge wandered onto the turf during a Bowling Green State University game this season, few could have predicted that a small cat would upstage a weekend of college football. The animal, quickly embraced by fans in the stands and on social media, has drawn repeated attention from CBS News outlets, turning a local oddity into a national talking point and forcing the university to balance publicity with practical concerns.

Video clips of Pudge padding along the sidelines and posing for selfie-hungry students have been featured on CBS Evening News and CBS Morning News in late September and early October, with the segments highlighting how the charismatic feline has become a unifying symbol for a campus still finding its footing after a bruising national moment for college athletics. The coverage, which ran across multiple CBS programs over the past two weeks, underscored the simple power of an unscripted moment to capture public imagination.

For fans, Pudge is more than a cute distraction. "He’s our good-luck charm," a student in the student section told a local reporter, encapsulating the sentiment that has turned spontaneous amusement into ritual. The cat’s appearances have coincided with a boost in stadium chatter, increased social media engagement for the team’s accounts and a stream of alumni messages that mix bemusement with nostalgia. That performative energy matters: in an era when college programs increasingly rely on media narratives to recruit players and solicit donor support, even offbeat stories can become useful currency.

From a business perspective, the phenomenon illuminates how lower-cost, organic moments can amplify a program’s visibility. Unlike multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns or celebrity endorsements, Pudge generated national reach through unpaid, viral social sharing. Athletic departments watching closely will note how such organic attention can be leveraged for merchandise, ticket sales and alumni relations — provided the university navigates the optics carefully.

University officials have approached the situation with a combination of amusement and caution. Public statements emphasize student safety and the animal’s welfare, noting that staff monitor the sidelines to prevent disruption. Animal welfare advocates who have weighed in on national broadcasts urge that the cat be treated humanely and not allowed to become a recurring hazard; similar debates have accompanied other viral animal moments at sporting events, from squirrels to dogs.

Culturally, Pudge’s ascent taps into a broader appetite for warmth and authenticity amid the often cynical world of collegiate sports, where debates over name-image-likeness rules, conference realignment and multimillion-dollar coaching contracts dominate headlines. A small, furry interloper offered a momentary reset — a reminder that communal rituals can still produce surprises that knit a crowd together.

As Bowling Green assesses whether to lean into Pudge’s fame — potential merchandising, curated social media content and controlled photo opportunities are all possibilities — the episode raises larger questions about how institutions monetize spontaneous culture without exploiting it. For now, the cat remains a welcome interloper: an accidental mascot whose greatest impact may be the reminder that, in college sports as in society, the most resonant stories often come from the margins.