Cotton Bowl: Memphis, Penn State fans must check out these life-sized mascots

To honor both Penn State and Memphis in the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic, life-sized mascots have been created entirely out of tires.

It’s the best time of the year with bowl season upon us and some of the matchups that you wouldn’t normally see taking place and becoming instant classics.

Penn State and Memphis will be one of those games.

But before they take the field on Saturday afternoon, a different kind of Nittany Lion and Tiger will be the center of attention as Goodyear, the host of the Cotton Bowl, has honored both programs with life-sized “Texas-sized” mascots made entirely of hundreds of tires.

Former minor league baseball player and artist Blake McFarland is credited with these amazing tire-based mascots. You need to see these.

Penn State fans have to be happy with the way the Nittany Lion turned out:

Oh, and the Tiger isn’t too shabby either, Memphis fans — and by “isn’t too shabby” I mean it’s amazing.

Folks, those are tires. Those look like impressive statues but when you think that it’s hundreds of rubber tires going into making these perfectly-shaped specimens, it’s that much more impressive.

As if that wasn’t impressive enough, just check out the work, in time-lapsed fashion, that went into making these beauties by McFarland.

This is the fourth straight year that Goodyear has created life-sized mascots to honor both Cotton Bowl participants and this may be the best turnout yet.

If Saturday’s game turns out as well as these tire-based statues, we will be in for an instant classic.

Goodyear once again out-did themselves with these and no, you can’t buy these bad boys in stores. These are one — or two, in this case — of a kind.