Recently, CraveOnline ran its Top 10 Best College Mascots. Here is the reverse looking at the worst of the worst in major college football. We excluded the non-BCS schools because, like minor league baseball teams, the lower ranks embrace the goofy (Go Slugs!) and the weird (Western Kentucky’s Big Red).
Brian Reddoch is a CraveOnline reporter and rabid fan of all teams Seattle. You can follow him on Twitter @ReddReddoch and at www.facebookcom/craveonlinesports.com.
Top 10 Worst Mascots
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#10 Super Frog – TCU Horned Frogs
He looks like he belongs on a Pokemon card.
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#9 Leprechaun – Notre Dame
Yes, he is original and iconic. At the same time he is on par with Big Foot and unicorns. More importantly, he is annoying and lacks cuteness and fierceness, which are requirements for a great mascot.
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#8 Otto the Orange – Syracuse
Nice try but at best he is cute. At worst he is just boring.
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#7 Brutus – Ohio State
A poisonous nut headed ‘thing’ is iconic but that’s all the football team’s doing.
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#6 Bevo – Texas Longhorn
The quiet thing sitting on the sidelines was literally bred to be docile. Is “docile” what you want from your fierce mascot??
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#5 Humans wearing human heads
Demon Deacon – Wake Forest. Great name and concept but the mascot itself looks sleepy;
Pistol Pete – Oklahoma State. I can’t tell Pistol Pete apart from the same generic cowboy versions at New Mexico State and Wyoming. Not good;
Mr. Commodore – Vanderbilt. Mr. C like he stepped out of an After School Special about creepy old men and inappropriate touching. -
#4 Lil Red and Herbie Husker – Nebraska
Creepy and creepier.
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#3 HokieBird - Virginia Tech
If it looks like a turkey, and sounds like a turkey, and walks like a turkey… then it is a turkey.
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#2 Unnamed Tree – Stanford
The school has never bothered to name an official mascot. The unofficial tree is not even named. It is ugly and shabby with big googly eyes. The biggest shame is the fist fights; the tree once removed Cal’s Oski’s headpiece which is a major no-no. Of course, there is the one time the tree taunted Washington’s band a little too forcefully and received a full on beatdown by the mighty awesomeness of the U-Dub band geeks.
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#1 Any Cat Mascot
The Clemson/LSU/Auburn Tigers, the WSU/BYU Cougars, the Arizona/Kentucky/K-State/Northwestern Wildcats, Cincinnati Bearcat, Penn State Nittany Lion and the Pitt panther are all pretty much the same mascot -- a generic feline that could easily be replaced by any of the other school’s version of a cat.
