Six Mascots Are Chasing Hall of Fame Glory
Hook ‘Em, Goldy Gopher, Buzz, Cosmo the Cougar, Purdue Pete, and Cocky are all on the 2026 Mascot Hall of Fame ballot — and their fan bases have until midnight Sunday to make history.
College football Saturdays. Basketball arenas packed to the rafters. Student sections losing their minds. Graduation ceremonies, alumni weekends, and homecoming games stretching back decades.
Every great college mascot carries all of that — the weight of tradition, the energy of youth, and the responsibility of representing an entire university’s identity to the world.
Six of those mascots are on the Mascot Hall of Fame ballot right now. Six schools. Six traditions. One Hall of Fame. And voting closes at midnight Sunday.
This is your campus challenge. This is your alumni moment. This is the weekend to show the mascot world what your school is made of.
HOOK ‘EM — University of Texas Longhorns
There is no symbol in college sports more immediately recognizable than the Hook ‘Em hand sign — two fingers raised, an entire culture declared. Hook ‘Em the mascot carries that same energy onto the field, into the stands, and across one of the most passionate fan bases in all of college athletics.
Texas plays on the biggest stages. Hook ‘Em belongs on the biggest ballot.
The Longhorn program is back in the national conversation. The alumni base is 500,000 strong and spread across every state in the country. If any fan base can move the needle in a final weekend push, it’s Burnt Orange Nation.
This is Texas. They do not do things small.
GOLDY GOPHER — University of Minnesota
Four national mascot championships. More than 500 appearances per year. A presence that extends far beyond the sidelines of Huntington Bank Stadium and into schools, hospitals, and communities across the Twin Cities and the broader Minnesota region.
Goldy Gopher has been the face of Minnesota athletics since 1952 — over seven decades of showing up, suiting up, and delivering the kind of energy that makes college sports worth watching. The Gopher is scrappy, relentless, and thoroughly Midwestern in the best possible way.
Minnesota alumni are everywhere. They are loyal, they are loud when it matters, and they know a worthy Hall of Famer when they see one.
BUZZ — Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
Buzz doesn’t walk onto the field. Buzz arrives.
The Georgia Tech Yellow Jacket mascot has built a reputation as one of college athletics’ most athletic and acrobatic performers — crowd surfing, backflipping, and executing in-game stunts that go viral with the same frequency that Georgia Tech graduates get recruited by the world’s top engineering firms. Which is to say: constantly.
Atlanta is a major media market. Georgia Tech’s alumni network is global, technically minded, and deeply competitive. These are people who understand data, track performance, and do not lose gracefully.
The Yellow Jacket does not sting halfway. Neither does its fan base.
COSMO THE COUGAR — Brigham Young University
Cosmo the Cougar is what happens when you give an extraordinarily athletic performer a giant cougar costume and complete creative freedom.
The result: a Guinness World Record holder. A multiple national mascot champion. A performer whose viral routines have racked up millions of views and introduced the concept of the college mascot as a genuine entertainer to audiences who had never thought about it before.
BYU fans travel in numbers that rival any program in the country, and they travel loud. Cosmo’s fan base is geographically spread across the United States — returned missionaries and alumni from every state who maintain an intense connection to their university and their mascot.
Cosmo doesn’t just perform. Cosmo commits. Every routine, every event, every appearance is delivered at full intensity.
The Hall of Fame was made for mascots like this.
PURDUE PETE — Purdue University
Before the mascot became a performer, it was a symbol.
Purdue Pete — the hard-hat-wearing Boilermaker who has been a fixture of Purdue athletics since 1956 — represents something that gets lost in the era of backflips and viral moments: the idea that a mascot’s job is first and foremost to embody the identity of its institution.
Pete embodies Purdue. The engineering tradition. The Big Ten rivalries. The generations of alumni who built things — bridges, rockets, spacecraft — and carried Pete’s image with them into the world. Neil Armstrong was a Purdue Boilermaker. So was Amelia Earhart. Purdue Pete stood for all of them before they were famous.
That is not a small thing. That is what the Hall of Fame is supposed to recognize.
The Purdue alumni network is massive, accomplished, and intensely loyal to their school. This weekend is their chance to say that loyalty out loud.
COCKY — University of South Carolina
Nine national mascot championships.
Let that land for a moment. Nine. That is not a résumé. That is a dynasty.
Cocky the Gamecock has been the undisputed standard-bearer of South Carolina athletics since 1980, building one of the most decorated competitive mascot records in the history of the craft. Nine UCA National Mascot Championships. Multiple appearances in national mascot competitions that he entered and then simply won.
The Gamecock fan base is one of college football’s most passionate and most vocal. Williams-Brice Stadium is one of the loudest venues in the SEC. And Cocky — confident, championship-tested, and thoroughly South Carolina — is exactly the kind of mascot that the Hall of Fame was built to honor.
Nine championships. One Hall of Fame spot available. The math is simple.
THE CAMPUS CHALLENGE — FINAL WEEKEND
Six schools. Six traditions. One Hall of Fame ballot.
Voting closes at midnight Eastern on Sunday, July 26. You can vote up to twice a day at mascothalloffame.com — and every nominee T-shirt purchased in the MHOF Store counts as an additional vote.
Tag your alumni groups. Share this with your student sections. Post it in every group chat, every Facebook group, every Discord server, every thread where your school’s name comes up.
College pride built these mascots. College pride is going to decide who makes history.
The final weekend is here. Which fan base wants it most?
