Herky the Hawk is one awkward bro.

Herky is not your typical bird. In fact, he’s not even 100 percent bird. For starters, he has human legs, and he wears football pants. This raises an obvious question: what happened to his hawk legs? Perhaps he swapped them for a pack of cigarettes while in prison with some of his pals from the football team.

Or, maybe, he was cursed by the “Buckeye Witch,” who promised to give him his bird legs back when Iowa wins the Rose Bowl. So don’t bother holding your breath, the human legs are here for a while.

Regardless of what may or may not have happened, the poor guy/bird looks pretty weird with his inflated, pillowy, upper body and skinny chicken legs in yellow football pants underneath. He’s a Teletubby on top and the Kool-Aid Man on the bottom. There’s something unsatisfying about a mascot who appears so incredibly top-heavy.

Herky’s oversized noggin is the source of that child-like instability, and it features two, prominent, symmetrical, seemingly endless, black expanses on his beak. When viewed from the side, he seems to be screaming a distorted, sideways “oh,” but from the front, they just look like a snout. A little misleading, considering their mascot isn’t supposed to be a man-Teletubby-bird-pig.

This is a tough point to avoid, but he’s wearing a freaking helmet. Normally it’s taboo to make fun of anyone who wears a helmet 24/7, but to be fair, anyone who wears a helmet constantly rarely has 70,000 mindless followers.

The sad truth is that for the last 50 years, Herky the Hawk has been having a “species identity crisis” and nobody is quite sure what to do. His man-bird-pig body has been mutated and deformed to the point that he has serious “grace issues.” Herky’s pediatrician recommended dance classes, but Herky insists that painting Kinnick’s lockers pink proves he’s a man and doesn’t have to listen to doctors any more.

In the absence of any fine motor coordination, Herky the Hawk became a hazard to himself. The helmet is simply there to keep him from causing further irreparable damage to himself. The university has tried to dismiss him countless times — he’s been enrolled since 1957 and is yet to earn even a single credit — but he has yet get the message.

Finally, they abandoned kicking him out and decided mashing a helmet over his malleable head and giving him a set of leg pads was an easier and cheaper fix than padding all the corners and sharp objects on campus. Can you blame them? Have you seen “Historic” Kinnick Stadium? That place is a hazard to anybody, imagine the challenges it presents to an uncoordinated man-bird-pig.

It should all make sense now. The helmet and leg pads keep Herky from injuring himself while he swings his big, scary flag around (seriously, do a Google Image search — he loves his flag).

So, on Saturday remember three things and you’ll have a more pleasant experience: First, Herky is wearing a helmet for his own safety; do not approach without proper protection. Second, Cy is the bird not wearing a helmet, is quite lovable, and is not a three-species mutant. Lastly, don’t miss this annual opportunity. It’s Iowa week, so find something black and gold and find a reason to ridicule it.