The $5 Bits of Broken Chair Trophy needs our help.

According to a report from 97.3 The Ticket in Lincoln, officials from the University of Minnesota and the University of Nebraska have no plans to endorse the rivalry trophy and are ignoring that it ever even existed.

The trophy itself could very well be sitting at the bottom of a dumpster somewhere at the moment. No one knows. And that should terrify college football fans everywhere.

What is the $5 Bits of Broken Chair Trophy? In short, it is a rivalry trophy between the football programs at Minnesota and Nebraska, created two years ago after a Twitter exchange between Goldy Gopher and Faux Pelini, the popular parody Twitter account of former Nebraska head coach Bo Pelini.

It has never been officially sanctioned or endorsed by either university, other than this Tweet last year from the Nebraska Football Twitter account. The trophy originated from Minnesota, and was embraced by Gopher punter Peter Mortell, who graduated in the spring. He arranged an exchange of the trophy last year with Nebraska punter Sam Foltz, who tragically died in a car accident this offseason.

Now the trophy appears to be at risk of suffering a premature death.

For a more detailed history of the trophy, click here.

This is not some corporate-sponsored "rivalry trophy" concocted in a think tank somewhere. It's a trophy birthed from the absurdity of the Internet and embraced for its ridiculousness by fans of both programs, and cannot be allowed to die while the Heartland Trophy and the Freedom Trophy are allowed to live.

Help us save the $5 Bits of Broken Chair Trophy.