Cotton Bowl MVP: Clark the bald eagle

The eagle has landed: at the Cotton Bowl.

A bald eagle named Clark went a tad rogue during the pre-game show at Saturday’s Cotton Bowl, the college football semifinal between Notre Dame and Clemson at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

The bird made several rounds of the stadium before landing on a fan or two.

Clark, by the way, was hatched in 2003 at the World Bird Sanctuary in St. Louis, according to the Star-Telegram.

He is part of a program to reintroduce the species while it was on the endangered-species list.

But he won’t be released into the wild.

As for the fan who proved to be an inadvertent landing post.

“I was scared crapless, ” Albert Armas told Sports Illustrated.

Clark also landed on another man, Tuyen Nguyen, who perhaps fittingly, is a Philadelphia Eagles fan.

“When I saw the bird land [on Armas], I thought, the bird had to be very tired,” Nguyen told SI later. “So I put my hand out to see what happens. And it landed on me. It was very interesting. I was very excited. It was amazing. I couldn’t even believe it.”

Clark eventually went to his handler.

This was the biggest stadium — with 90,000 fans — the bird had ever flown.

Oh, and for the game.

The Clemson Tigers practically mauled the Fighting Irish to win 30-3.

Clemson will now play Orange Bowl winner the Alabama Crimson Tide in the national championship Jan. 7.

Main photo @CBusIrish/Twitter

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Recovering newspaper reporter.

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