G’s Exploration or A Special Mascot Episode

Welcome, college football fans, to a special edition of the GCR related to those sometimes odd, sometimes confusing, but always inspiring mascots. Some schools have live animals as their symbol, some have more than one, some have mascots based on historical people. There is a wide range. Based on a question by long-time reader Carl, I took all 263 teams and put them into 20 different categories. The most common mascot is the Bulldogs with 13. There are 11 Tigers (and one Bengals) and 10 Wildcats (plus a plethora of other similar cats like Bobcats). There are also 9 Bears, 1 Golden Bears, 1 Bruins, and 1 Grizzlies – so, arguably 12 Bears which would make them the second most common, but 3 aren’t just “Bears”. There are also 12 total Hawks or Hawks-like mascots, but only 2 of them are identical. What seemed like a pretty simple exercise became much more complicated. I’m sure you’ll second guess me and that’s great – I’d love to hear how you’d look at it differently.

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The 20 categories I came up with have from 42 (Birds) to a single entry in the Fish category. I know that the Sharks (Long Island) could have been in the Animals-Other category, but it sort of surprised me that there’s only one Division 1 mascot named for a sea creature. Pro sports have the Marlins, the Rays, and the Dolphins just in Florida. Other oddities include 3 of the 5 Animals-Other category are in the Big Ten (Badgers, Golden Gophers, and Wolverines) while the American Conference has 3 of the 4 Owls. The Ivy League has 3 of the 5 Colors category (Big Green, Big Red, Crimson). Both the SEC and the SWAC have 3 Tigers and the Sun Belt has 2 of the 6 Royalty (Dukes and Monarchs). Speaking of the SWAC, 7 of the 12 teams have Felines as mascots (3 Tigers, Jaguars, Lions, Panthers, and Wildcats). The 6-team MEAC is the largest conference (or independent group) that has no duplicate categories (Birds, Bugs, Canines, Historical, Ungulates, and Ursine). One further breakdown, the 68 Core 4 teams have 13 Felines with Birds and Historical tying for second place with 8 each. The 66 Group of 5 teams favor Birds with 15 instances followed by 8 Felines and 7 Canines. The 129 FCS has 26 Felines, 19 Birds, and 18 Canines. Without further ado, here is the complete list from most to least by category.

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That’s it for this edition. Tune in next time for a continuation of the kickoff countdown, G