At halftime of college football’s Big 12 Championship last weekend in Arlington, Texas, two students met on the field for a competition that would have, in its way, higher stakes than the game itself. It was time for the Dr Pepper Tuition Giveaway. The promotion has been held at major conference championship games since 2008. It works like this: Students wearing Dr Pepper–branded jerseys have 30 seconds to lob as many Dr Pepper–branded footballs as possible into a giant Dr Pepper–branded can with a circular hole cut into its side; whoever sinks the most wins $100,000 for tuition or to help pay off student loans. The announcer then asks the winner what this means to them, and the winner thanks some combination of their friends, their family, God, and Keurig Dr Pepper Inc. The runner-up gets $20,000, and third-place finishers, who are eliminated the day before in a preliminary round of football-tossing in an empty stadium, receive $2,500 in tuition money. They are not mentioned on the telecast. As an exercise in corporate branding, this …