Jerome Allen cardboard cutout roaming the northeast

Oversized cardboard heads have taken the college basketball world by storm this season and Penn has been no exception. Big-head Zack Rosen, Tyler Bernardini and Rob Belcore have all made appearances at the Palestra along with President Amy Gutmann and coach Jerome Allen.

Allen's foam-core counterpart, though, didn't see an exciting weekend of hoops at the Cathedral, as the coach's likeness has been missing since after Penn lost to Harvard the Friday before last. On Friday night, Penn Athletics even put red and blue ribbons on the lapels of the other big heads to show support for their lost leader.

I don't condone stealing — the big heads are the property of Penn Athletics — but whoever took Jerome is doing some awesome, awesome things with it, and I say keep it up.

Read on, for a tale of mystery, intrigue, debauchery and romance:

Let's travel back in time to last Friday night, when Penn realized Jerome went missing after the game. @Pennathletics tweeted this plea to bring him home, no questions asked:

Five days later, the twitter-world was blessed with @JeromeOnTheRoam, an account started by whoever has the head:

And over the previous weekend of basketball, JeromeOnTheRoam has continually one-upped itself in terms of awesomeness and creativity. During the close Cornell game:

Then after Penn won:Then on Saturday:And finally after defeating Columbia, he made it all the way to New York!

When, in the last four years, has there been enough student interest in Penn basketball that someone would go this far with a silly college prank? I think that speaks volumes to the changing attitude toward the program on campus, and especially the new coach.

So whoever is behind this, keep it up — but #BringJeromeHome at the end of the season.