The biggest star to emerge from Thursday’s College Football Playoffs was not a player from Oregon, Florida State, Alabama or Ohio State. It was a young fan from the Buckeye State who stole the show.

During the fourth quarter of the Bama-OSU game, the Buckeyes punter flubbed a kick that gave the Tide great field position and put Ohio State’s 34-28 lead in serious jeopardy. As Alabama fans rejoiced, OSU supporters were distraught.

None looked sadder than a coed who massaged the back of her boyfriend’s head while he moped near the first row railing.

All of this was normal. But what happened next will live forever in college football lore.

The young woman, apparently realizing she was on national television, removed her hand from the back of the young man’s head with a look that implied some sort of guilt.

Check it out:


The moment was quickly swept up in a maelstrom of social media controversy, as several sites hypothesized that the young woman was caught with her “side piece,” or a man who was not her boyfriend. The following headlines were thrown up like hotcakes:

“Did This Awkward Ohio State Fan Get Caught Cheating On Her Boyfriend?”
“This Ohio State Fan Totally Got Busted Cheating On Her Boyfriend”
“Girl Gets Caught Cheating On National Television… Or Does She?”

But a couple recently uncovered pieces of evidence seem to indicate that the two were an official couple, and nothing shady was happening at all.

Bleacher Report located a tweet from an alleged friend that identified the young woman’s Twitter account and expressed sarcastic indignance that people would assume the young woman was cheating on her boyfriend.

Gawker tracked down a Facebook post from the alleged cousin of the young woman that indicated she was not cheating.

So, we can reasonably infer that she was not doing anything that would get her in trouble, but that still doesn’t answer the question: Why the hell did she have that look on her face?

Feel free to chime in with your theories in the comments section below.

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