Top 5 Live Mascots in College Football

By Jace Hinton December 12, 2024 04:58

Photo by Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports

Live mascots are one of the many cool traditions that makes college sports so amazing but who is the best college mascot in all of college football? In 2019 was the 150 year anniversary of college football and ESPN did many specials and one was the best live mascot. They just voted on one. These are the top 5 live college mascots in the country.

Honorable mentions:

These are mascots I know exist but unfortunately are not in the top 5 of this list. While some of these mascots are similar to the mascots talked about on this something to note is that

Cam the Ram (Colorado State)

Boomer and Sooner (Oklahoma)

War Eagle (Auburn)

Falcon (Air Force)

Sir Big Spur ( South Carolina)

Dubs (Washington)

Smokey (Tennessee)

Reveille (Texas A&M)

Traveler (USC)

UGA the Bulldog (Georgia)

UGA is the Georgia Bulldogs live mascot that lives in his dog house during the games. Each UGA is given the roman numeral of which UGA they are and a nickname, the current UGA is UGA XI (11) and the nickname Boom. The UGA’s are pure white english bulldogs that a family in the Savannah area gives them to the university and the tradition has been going on since 1956. However if you ask Coach Lee Corso while UGA is cute he would tell you “That an ugly dog”. Personally, UGA is cute.

Chief Osceola and Renegade (Florida State)

Also in 1956 in Tallahassee Chief Osceola and Renegade were introduced at Florida State by Bill Durham who came up with the idea of a man dressed in Native American garment was to ride a horse to midfield and the horse prance around for a moment before the horse stands up on its back two legs and as the horse comes down the man plant a spear that its end is on fire be planted into the ground. One of the coolest traditions in all of college football. Renegade is the horse that the Chief rides and like UGA is named by roman numerals but does not have a nickname. Currently Florida State is on Renegade VI (6)

Bevo (Texas)

In 1916 Bevo made his first appearance against the Aggies of Texas A&M and that day the Longhorns won 21-7 and that was all the motivation that was needed to make Bevo the live mascot for Texas. Currently on Bevo 15 each Bevo is about a 1,700 pound animal and has a horn span of 58 inches. Bevo is a 100 plus year long standing tradition and is one of the most famous live college mascots in all the game.

Mike the Tiger (Louisiana State University “LSU”)

It’s a live freaking tiger. Tiger, you know those things that will eat people. A giant kitty cat that will eat a human. However the tradition of Mike started back in 1934 and he has his own habitat on the campus of LSU and a live camera for those who want to watch Mike roam around in his habitat. It used to be that they would put Mike in a cage and have him out there at midfield before the game as the team entered the field and now they do not do that as much. Currently they are on Mike VII (7).

Ralphie the Buffalo (Colorado)

Ralphie is the most electric mascot in college football. The live buffalo often gets mistaken for a male but Ralphie is a female originally named Ralph until a fan realized Ralph was missing an important compnanent of male biology. Ralphie leads the Buffaloes onto the field before every game she runs in a horseshoe shape on the field before she enters back into her trailer. Being a Ralphie handler is a varsity sport. Ralphie can reach up to 30 mph on a straight away. Fans have said they want to go to Boulder to see the area and just to watch Ralphie run. A live mascot that creates this much buzz is guaranteed the best mascot in college sports.