Actual Mid-Major Madness Mascot Melee: Who would win?

We’ve had our Mid-Major Madness Mascot Melee, where you voted on your favorite mascots and Scrappy from North Texas was named the best in all the land. But what if we wanted to actually take some mascots to war with us? Who would we want?

Our newest writer, Cam (no not that Cam, his friend, Cam), sought to find out.

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Champion of American East: Vermont Catamounts

A catamount is a mountain lion, and mountain lions are very scary one-on-one. They can double the speed of humans, but usually don’t attack people (Hallelujah, honestly because our ancestors wouldn’t have had a chance against them).

Nickname Rating: 10/10

War Rating: 5/10

Champions of WCC: Gonzaga Bulldogs

A bulldog is proof that humans can take something that was once a proud looking dog that symbolized “pluck and determination” and turn it into a waddling, slobbering, heart disease with hip dysplasia. I also don’t like using dogs as mascots because it sometimes forces me to cheer against dogs and I never want to do that. There is no chance the bulldogs could fight considering it’s surprising that they are still evolutionarily possible. (Ed note: they’re still good dogs.)

Nickname Rating: 2/10

War Rating: 0/10

BIRD TEAMS

Champions of Big Sky Conference: North Dakota Fighting Hawks

A-Sun Champion: Florida Gulf Coast Eagles

Big South Champion: Winthrop Eagles

CAA Champions: UNC Wilmington Seahawks

Ohio Valley Champions: Jacksonville State Gamecocks

All birds are the same and stupid. I personally don’t like birds because I can’t fist fight them. I don’t trust any living thing I can’t beat in a fist fight. They’d just be able to fly really high and avoid the fight. Also birds are easy to shoot with guns.

Nickname Rating: 0/10

War Rating: 2/10

A-10 Champion: Rhode Island Rams

The type of ram that Rhode Island had as a live mascot is a Dorset Lamb. These lambs are pretty small and not that intimidating. The first sentence in Wikipedia for Horned Dorset Lamb is “Horned Dorset breed of sheep is known mostly for its prolific lambing.” The first sentence under “Characteristics” is “Both horned and polled Dorsets are all white sheep and medium size, having good body length and muscle conformation to produce a desirable carcass.”

Nickname Rating: 4/10

War Rating: 1/10

Horizon League Champions: Northern Kentucky Norse

A Norse is like a Viking but does not fight. Also Norse didn’t wear horns on their head because that would look very dumb.

Nickname Rating: 4/10

War Rating: 3/10

C-USA Champions: Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders

The Blue Raider has no historical equivalent, it was coined by a football player in 1934 who stole the nickname from the Colgate Red Raiders. The Colgate Red Raiders was a bad depiction of a native riding a horse, so I don’t know what a Blue Raider is. We are going to use the mascot instead because it’s a winged horse named Lightning. I don’t know how a flying horse fights, but I think it would be a bunch of horses drop kicking people out of the sky and on that alone the flying horses would win everything.

Nickname Rating: 10/10

War Rating: 10/10

Tigers:

Ivy League Champions: Princeton Tigers

SWAC Champions: Texas Southern Tigers

Princeton got their nickname from a cheer that they had already had and their colors being orange and black. Texas Southern just chose their name because tigers are cool which is respectable. Tigers are the world’s largest cat species and can weigh up to 400 pounds. Tigers, I would argue, have the widest range of videos on YouTube. They have videos of tigers acting like large house cats, but also videos of tigers eating bears and wild animals.

Nickname Rating: 1/10

War Rating: 5/10

MAC Champion Kent State Golden Flashes

The name Golden Flashes was introduced in 1926, and ever since then everybody has been confused on what a Golden Flash is. The mascot has ranged from lightning, to weirdly dressed people wielding lightning, to even a golden retriever. Right now it’s a golden eagle, which has been the current mascot since 1994. Golden eagles have been previously mentioned, and this one might have a hidden power of lightning and of being a good dog.

Nickname Rating: 10/10

War Rating: 8/10

WAC Champions: New Mexico State Aggies

The New Mexico State Aggies got their name from their agricultural beginnings, and I am finally making the connection between the words agriculture and aggies. Theoretically, the farmers would be able to take over the tyrannical government, but the government has drones and bombs so it’d probably be like a 16-seed beating a 1-seed. Sometimes it may seem like the underdog will win, but then the refs come in at the final minute and rig the game in favor of the 1-seed. I AM STILL MAD AT YOU 2012 SYRACUSE VS UNC ASHEVILLE REFS.

Nickname Rating: 2/10

War Rating: 3/10

Big West: UC Davis Aggies

An Aggie for UC Davis is a thoroughbred horse. Now, the question is how would a horse fight people? They don’t. This is now a paragraph about the critically acclaimed movie, award winning play and runner up for the Whitboard Book Award, War Horse. War Horse is a story about a horse named Joey - which is stupid because horses don’t have human names - and World War I. After mild research over this movie, book, and play I learned that from 1860 to 1916, the British Army required their soldiers to have mustaches. I am not sure if people who couldn’t grow mustaches were banned from joining, but I hope that there were a dedicated few who tried to draw a mustache on and were really scared of rain washing away their mustache at all times.

Aggies Rating: 2/10

War Horse Rating: 9/10

NEC Champions: Mount St. Mary’s Mountaineers

Mountaineers (besides Hatfields and McCoys) have little actual war experience. But gosh dangit they are gonna get their rifles and fight to protect Mount St Mary’s, and I do appreciate being able to call them the Mount Mountaineers.

Nickname Rating: 9/10

War Rating: 7/10

MAAC Champions: Iona Gaels

If you’re wondering what a Gael is, like I was 5 seconds before typing this, it is very simply a person who speaks Gaelic. Gaels are usually from Ireland and Scotland. The Scottish part of Twitter is insane and awesome so bonus points for that. I think they’d be as good at fighting as the farmers.

Nickname Rating: 9/10

War Rating: 3/10

MWC Champions: Nevada Wolf Pack

A million “packs” of wolves is a crazy amount of wolves. There are 15 wolves in a pack, so that’s 15 million wolves. Also wolves are cool so extra points for them.

Nickname Rating: 7/10

War Rating: 6/10

Patriot League Champions: Bucknell Bison

I have no real idea what the buffalo strategy would be in a war besides a stampede. All I know about buffalo are that they are huge, fast, awesome beasts.

Nickname Rating: 10/10

War Rating: 8/10

Southern Conference Champions: East Tennessee State Buccaneers

The reason behind a small college in Tennessee being named the Buccaneers is a hidden river was found that ran underneath the college, and a legend popped up where Jean Paul LeBucque wanted to go inland to store gold and treasure. He went to where the spot that is now East Tennessee State. It is hard to find evidence of Jean LeBucque outside of this legend directly related to the creation of this nickname.

Nickname Rating: 5/10

War Rating: 2/10

Sun Belt Champions: Troy Trojans

The Troy University Trojans are located in Troy, Alabama. Trojans are soldiers of Troy which makes for a very apt nickname for a city called Troy, so points for that cleverness. And the trojans have really cool hats which most people don’t have.

Nickname Rating: 9/10

War Rating 2/10

Summit League Champions: South Dakota State Jackrabbits

The most common story on how the South Dakota State Jackrabbits were named is a Minnesota based newspaper in 1905 said the football team were as quick as jackrabbits and the name stayed. A plot twist about jackrabbits are that they are not actually rabbits, they are hares. Another twist is that jackrabbits don’t make good pets so they’re useless.

Nickname Rating: 8/10

War Rating: 1/10

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The overall conclusion of this is that it is currently the offseason, and we need better nicknames. We need more flying horses, more greek gods, more natural disasters that will really strike fear into people’s hearts. Imagine the Iowa State Cyclones in a war, a bunch of tornadoes just wiping off a country from existence. I’ll end this with a list of awesome nicknames that anyone can take.

• Killer Robots
• Radioactive Cockroaches
• Tsunamis
• Heart Disease
• Drones