Iowa teen takes cardboard Tim Tebow to prom

In football, when the first option doesn't look like it's going to work out, you call an audible and change the play. Apparently the same rule applies when you're trying to get a date with a major football star like Tim Tebow.

Iowa teenager Rachel Bird, after numerous failed attempts to get the N.Y. Jets quarterback to join her as her prom date, decided on the next best thing. She made a life-size cutout of him instead.

The whole idea stemmed from a deal Bird had struck with her classmate. If she could get Tebow to come to her prom, her pal would give her $50. When Tebow didn't respond to Bird's requests through Twitter, his agent or the Jets, her back-up plan was set in motion.

As for how cardboard Tebow was as a prom date, Bird tells the Des Moines Register, "He was a cheap date, and he didn't talk much. And when I asked him to stand in a corner, he did. I don't think it even hurt his feelings."

Bird did have one regret about the event, but it had nothing to do with her two-dimensional date.

"I should have made a dress out of Jets jerseys," she says. "But I didn't have time."