The Story: With the passing of Georgia’s beloved bulldog icon, a new master-mascot must be chosen.  Who will it be?

The Search: Uga VII

Some of us are born into greatness and some have it unexpectedly thrust upon us and never learn to deal with it, leading us to end up in rehab.  You can count the University of Georgia’s Mascot Uga VII amongst the former.  The purebred English Bulldog proudly represented the University of Georgia on the field of athletic battle after the passing of his father Uga VI, the winningest mascot in the school’s history, amassing a 16-7 record.  While this brave beast inspired many a hard fought victory on the field, he learned the hard way that you can’t win all of life’s battles.  Uga VII passed away yesterday at the tender young age of 4 (or in dog years, 28).  His standing as college football’s #1 mascot will always be a proud badge of honor worn by all those who knew him.  With Uga VII gone and no successor currently named, there are a few mascots nipping at the departed Bulldog’s hind legs to be the new…top err…dog…Ok, bad choice of words…top representative.  Here are just a few that would love to be named the #1 Mascot in all of the land.

Otto- Official Mascot of the Syracuse Orange; This fuzzy and fruity dot regularly delights fans by being a literal ball of orange-hued energy. His actual form is as ambiguous as the school’s nickname, The Syracuse Orange. Orange is a color…the mascot is orange. Makes enough sense.

Benny The Beaver- It must take a lot of fortitude to inhabit the suit of Oregon State’s mascot.  I imagine there’s a constant barrage of “beaver” jokes hurled in your general direction from both your own fans and fans of the opposing team.  Lots of points for dealing with that.

The Bird (Air Force Academy)- The Bird is an apropos mascot for the branch of the Armed Forces dealing mostly in flight.  Also in the event the team is beating a hated rival on the road he might be inclined to show off his “flipping” ability, if you know what we mean.

Keggy The Keg- This Unofficial Mascot of Dartmouth really cuts to the chase of college life. We can’t imagine a student body not inspired by Keggy’s presence.  Go Dartmouth!

Cayenne- University of Louisiana Lafayette employ a Cayenne Pepper as their mascot. Normally we’d find it difficult to root for a vegetable, but this spicy choice for an area best associated with some spicy food just seems to make a lot of sense.

There are probably hundreds more mascots where that came from, but not have so ably embedded themselves in our psyche as these beacons of team spirit and that old college try.  Sorry Notre Dame, your violent Irishman just didn’t bowl us over.