Mascot Monday is back and we are still counting down mascots we’ve yet to cover that are in Phil Steele’s Top 50 preseason poll for 2011. We’re in the middle of media days for the college football and the pro guys finally set down their swords and are getting ready for another season as well. This week I will skip over that hype and go straight to #39 and Illinois’ Chief Illiniwek. I believe that this is the first time I will cover a mascot that is actually no longer spreading cheer on the sidelines. Lot’s of controversy behind this one folks, let’s find out what happened
It’s been a bear of a Spring down here, with temperatures being in the steady high 90s. The heat is melting my imagination so for this week’s Mascot Monday we’ll check out another bear at Montana, Monte. Okay, I was a little influenced by last week’s news of Nate Montana getting a DUI there, but I’m sweating my butt off right now. Monte’s been around for a very short time but he has put up some impressive numbers in mascot-dom. This week, we’ll find out just how full Monte is trophy case wise so let’s get cracking.
This week’s Mascot Monday sees us going Hollywood! You know, in all of the years I’ve done this little mascot post, I’ve never hit the big time cities and the college mascots that dwell within them. Welp, I’m starting something new by focusing on the University of California Los Angeles’ Joe and Josephine Bruin. Okay so he’s not explicitly Hollywood, but he does have a weirdo kind of relationship with his female counterpart Josephene. We’ll learn about that among some other tasty historical items for this week’s trip down mascot lane. Get your cheap sunglasses ready and try to avoid TMZ. Here we go.
Another week of Mascot Monday is bearing down and I’ve got another costumed character to pass judgement over. You know, it isn’t as bad as it sounds and we’ll prove it with this week’s mascot. A couple of weeks ago we featured a mascot by the name of Rocky and we are continuing that trend by looking at the University of South Florida’s version, Rocky the Bull. A school that’s up and coming in football has the same feeling for this steed so let’s check him out.
My only memory of this week’s Mascot Monday’s team was always seeing them pop up on the random play for EA Sports NCAA College Football 2003 on the Playstation 2. Yeah, I just dated myself there. Anywho, the Akron Zips aren’t exactly the best when it comes to football but somehow, they’ve managed to put up a successful, yet awkward, mascot named Zippy. This week, we’ll explore the world of Zippy, including the origin of the school name and the decision to choose a kangaroo as the mascot. It won’t go too fast as we’ll try our best not to zip through this (har har).
Another week of Mascot Monday sees us head down to the Southeastern Conference and paying a visit to Vanderbilt’s Mr. C. Now their football team isn’t much to talk about compared to some of the other titans of the SEC. Today we’ll find out with Mr. C why Vanderbilt deserves their stake in the best (it hurts to say) football conference in college. Along the we’ll see Mr. C’s accolades as well as get a visit from an unlikely jokester. Buckle in and get your old school military gear ready, it’s Mr. C time!
This week’s Mascot Monday brings us back down to Texas as we take a look at Conference USA’s UTEP Miners and their foam faced fella, Paydirt Pete. The UTEP mascot’s been going through some changes but the latest iteration brought some success. We’ll take a look at that as well as UTEP’s somewhat up and down football program. I’m getting back into the mascot swing of things and digging deep into Paydirt Pete will show it. Don’t take that out of context, however.
As some of you may know, I do a Mascot Monday post ever week in the offseason. What I do is an introspective into the many mascots that parade the sidelines during the games. Some of them are live animals. Some of them are costumed. And even some of them are real people. There isn’t a massive ranking list like the football teams, but I do tell you if the mascot is worth watching and if the school really cares about its spirit. Welp I saw something yesterday that made me think about the state of mascots.
This week on Mascot Monday we take a look at Phil Steele’s #21 pre season top 40 team in South Carolina and their costumed buddy Cocky. Yes, the Fighting Gamecocks have a high falootin’, arrogant little bird named Cocky. We’ll find out whom he took over the job from as well as some other moments in Cocky’s history that let him to his current winning attitude. We’re counting down the rest of the mascots we’ve yet to cover leading up to the final Mascot Monday of the year. After that, it will be football time and no more mascot for the rest of the season. Now, let’s check out Cocky.
This week we congratulate the Boise State Broncos for making it into the semi-big time and their move to join the Mountain West Conference by featuring their mascot, Buster Bronco. In the last couple of years, the major winning by this minor program is starting to finally pay off. We’ll take a look a the original Bronco and how this guy went from tiny to massive mascot muscle. Change may will be quiet for a while, thanks to some Big 12 (10) maneuvering. Until the next big wind of expansion blows into a tornado, let’s mosey on up to Idaho and check out Buster.
It’s another Mascot Monday, but more importantly it’s another Memorial Day here at the KCCGD. Last year we took a look at Army’s mascots, but this year it’s the Navy’s turn. So why is a goat, Bill to be specific, the mascot for the Midshipmen? We’ll find that out as well as look at Bill throughout the years. As an added bonus, we’ll get to Bill fire off weapons and blow up stuff in between. All fun aside, let’s remember the men and women who perished in combat while we take a journey through Bill the Goat’s decorated achievements, both live and plush style.
We’re heading up north and the Big Ten for this week’s Mascot Monday. Goldy Gopher is the main mascot at the University of Minnesota campus. Once a proud member of the marching band, Goldy now appears at all sporting events. This week we’ll find out how that happened, as well as why you shouldn’t go too far in mimicking. We’ll also take a look at what Goldy’s doing to help clean up that mistake. So hanker on down with your favorite gnawin’ log and join us as we take a look at Minnesota’s own golden child, Goldy.
In continuing with our homage to March Madness Mascots, this week’s entrant supports a team that recently ran over the the Duke Blue Devils. This blog is all about football, but we’re not so naive enough to wonder what that accomplishments. So in reward for achieving that impressive feat, we are going to be looking at the University of Maryland’s Testudo. We’ll take a look at the bronze buddy and the fabric counterpart in this trip down mascot lane. We’ll find out first and foremost, just what the hell a Testudo is along the way. So poke your head out for Testudo!
We’re winding down to the end of the off season and the end of our first foray into Mascot Mondays. We have a couple of more to go before we pack the suit away in the trunk and turn off the lights. But before we go away, we have a couple of more guys, er gals, er blobs to feature. So this week we will take a look at one of the influences to this here series. We’ve always known mascots to be fun and lovable while at the same time be fearsome and intimidating to opponents. But every time we see Western Kentucky’s Big Red, we wonder just what the heck does this thing do? We’ll try to figure that out on top of answering why he’s so dang popular.
The eyes of the college football season are upon us and we are beginning to wipe the eye boogers away to gaze into the crystal ball and see who will come out on top. Last year, there was a three way tussle in the Big 12 South that left the Texas Longhorns out of the Big 12 title game and out of the National Championship race. This year they are back with their Heisman runner up in Colt McCoy and are one of the sexy picks for a national title run. We thought it would be fitting in the last couple of weeks of this year’s Mascot Monday to take a look at the final Mascot we’ll do from the Big 12 from the school that has the best title shot. So we present to you the famed Bevo and a couple of other mascots that barely have any press or history.
