Across college football many teams have defensive trophies rewarding a turnover. Miami started the tradition with its iconic turnover chain, and the phenomenon has exploded from there.

Indiana Football became the next team to join that list in the offseason, adding an authentic WWE style championship belt to their sideline. While a lot of schools use the idea of a belt, Indiana’s is special because of its WWE family ties.

Declan McMahon, son of Shane McMahon and grandson of Vince McMahon, is a running back on the Indiana Football team. Vince McMahon is the co-founder and chairman of the modern day WWE. So the Indiana captains thought it was a no-brainer to come straight to Declan when looking for a defensive trophy.

While the actual designing of the belt came down to the people who design the belts for the WWE, the team had input. They wanted the belt to feature themes that represent the culture of the team and the defensive like ‘LEO’, ‘Swarm D’, ‘Hoosier Army’ and of course it had to be red. Senior Captain and defensive back Noah Pierre spearheaded the project alongside Declan, and he insisted the belt have a spinning Indiana trident, an idea taken from John Cena.

The belt was first brought out in the first game of the season, when sophomore defensive back Phillip Dunnam intercepted Ohio State’s Kyle McCord. It was no doubt something the players had been greatly looking forward to. Pierre, Dunnam, and senior defensive back Josh Sanguinetti placed bets on who would win the belt first.

One might notice that the belt used by Dunnam and in the first few games is black, and only has ‘Indiana’ on it. The fully rendered belt was not available for the first few games of the season, so they used a still-real WWE belt with some Indiana stickers on it. So technically, Indiana has not only a real WWE belt, but two. Both will be used by Indiana, the originally black one most likely just for pictures and recruiting.

Sanguinetti was the first one to win the red, swagged-out belt, a few weeks ago against Penn State, so maybe an argument could be made that he was the one to win the bet. However, the third person on that bet, Pierre, went down with a lower body injury a few weeks ago and an unknown date of return. With eligibility exhausted and only two games left in this season it is unfortunately possible that the one who led this initiative may not ever get to win the belt himself.

The other leading the initiative, Declan, will also (most likely) never win the belt, but because of the position he plays. Declan is on the offense, meaning he will not be put in a situation where he will be recovering a turnover. That does not seem to bother him, because something good on defense will be something good for the whole team, and just the opportunity to share his family culture with his team’s culture is enough.