Burt Reynolds will be honored by his alma mater's football team with an awesome helmet decal

Jack Plunkett/Invision/AP

Burt Reynolds leans against his iconic 1977 Pontiac Trans Am.

• Burt Reynolds died this week at the age of 82.
• Before Reynolds was a Hollywood star, he was a college football player at Florida State University.
• The school will honor Reynolds with a helmet decal based on the license plate from his famous 1977 Pontiac Trans Am.

Before Burt Reynolds was an iconic Hollywood leading man, he was a college football player at Florida State University.

Reynolds died this week at the age of 82, and the school has come up with an excellent way to honor their late alumnus. The Seminoles will add decals to their helmets modeled after the license plate from his famous 1977 Pontiac Trans Am in the movie "Smokey and the Bandit."

FSU Football

Here is what the plate looked like on the car.

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Reynolds attended Florida State University on a football scholarship. He played halfback for two seasons before a knee injury ended his football career.

"My dad probably took it harder than I did," Reynolds told EW in 2005. "He was crushed."

While at FSU, Reynolds was a roommate with future college football coach and announcer Lee Corso. Ironically, it was Corso's car in college, a green 1952 Chevy, that fueled the pair.

"His looks and my car, we killed it together," Corso told The Athletic earlier this year.