ESPN’s Ryan McGee names Georgia’s beloved Uga as top live mascot in college football
By Paul Harvey
Published:
ESPN’s Ryan McGee is always one to tackle the fun topics in college football, and he recently underwent an especially delightful endeavor.
As part of McGee’s buildup for the 2025 season, he broke down the best mascots in the entire country. He broke down the mascots into costumed, mechanical, human and live animal categories before ranking the top 5 in each section.
The SEC was featured prominently, including in the live animal category where Auburn’s War Eagle, LSU’s Mike the Tiger and Texas’s Bevo made an appearance. However, none of those could take the top spot, which McGee reserved for Georgia’s beloved bulldog mascot, Uga.
Here’s what McGee had to say about Uga:
Despite Bevo’s best efforts, the pampered bulldog who lives “between the hedges” is still the leader of college football’s animal kingdom. The Seiler family of Savannah is keeper of the direct Uga bloodline that runs back to the 1950s, bringing His Royal Mugness up to Athens on game weekends, where he has the presidential suite in the on-campus hotel (Rece Davis was once booted from that room to accommodate the dog, for real) and a customized SUV traveling compartment and hangs out in a temperature-controlled doghouse during games. Uga wasn’t the first dog mascot (shoutout to Yale’s Handsome Dan) and he is one of dozens of college canines, but he’s still top dog.
Georgia is now up to Uga XI, a bulldog known as “Boom.” He received the mantle ahead of the 2023 season and already has one SEC Championship Game title and College Football Playoff appearances, but is also looking to replicate the success of his predecessor, who won 2 national titles during his tenure.
Paul Harvey lives in Atlanta and covers SEC football.
