so...when you pick a bracket based on mascots you face several difficult decisions...my recommendations...pick some rules and then you have to stick with them...they become your decision rules...you must disregard your heart and go with the rules, otherwise the internal validity and beauty of your brackets is for naught....
some basic decisions you must make....
is the mascot winner decided by
1) who would win in a fight (this puts any team with weapon at an advantage)
2) who is cuddliest (benefits cuddliness, but diminishes the importance of fighting skills...notable exception...Sparty of Michigan State...what a cutie...you know he does weddings...but remember a couple of years ago when the oregon duke...who is related to Donald..and hence cool, b/c he doesn't wear pants...and the utah bird...i don't know what kind of bird it is, but it was on stilts, got into a fight...mascot heads were flying...it was awesome....
Another thing to consider.....
what to do with imaginary creatures....case in point...UAB blazers, I mean I love them they have a minority coach, amusing players, and a dragon for a mascot....how sweet is that...and it is a cool dragon...based on what we know from legends, this suggests that perhaps only a team known as the knights, or perhaps someone like sparty could be them in a fight.....since a UAB/ Michigan St match up is unlikely...what are you to do?
Other imaginary creatures out there...the Blue Devils....always difficult to deal with....
Another issue...what about birds?
If you take the winning a fight mentality....I mean a bird could just fly away and drop poop on its opponents head...I have problems with this...
Insects are easier....
If they are hornets, yellow jackets, etc...at least they have stingers....
Now what do you do if you have tigers vs tigers, or wildcats or something along those lines without a clear advantage....You need a secondary rule...sometimes I go with cuddliest, but more often I go with color....Usually I pick the blue team. But you could go with red, or whatever, but a word of caution...it is rare that a non blue or red team wins in college ball....never pick purple....sometimes orange and green work for wins too....(see syracuse/michigan state)...
So we have already talked about imaginary creatures like blue devils and blazers, but what about teams like Stanford (they are the cardinal, but their mascot is a tree) or Syracuse (they are the orangemen and their mascot is a giant orange)....I commonly have this dilemma....I always go against Stanford... everyone can kick the tree's butt and the cardinal is lame...Now Syracuse is a bit more confusing...I figure since the orangeman is fat, he might be able to crush a few people......
What other considerations are there.....Oh yeah...the worst mascot ever.....well as far as I am concerned...The Penn Quaker. A) He is a pacifist. He isn't even going to fight...so he will get his ass kicked. B)he is fugly, so no one would even want to cuddle him....so don't pick Penn...if you had one of the other Ivy teams like Princeton, fine pick a tiger on either level...but no stinking quakers....lame, lame, lame...All I can think of is Wilford Brimley telling me to eat my oatmeal....lame...
OK..I have to work on my picks....
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Just wanted to clear up the issue of the Penn Quaker. The Penn Quaker is actually a Fighting or Free Quaker. Around the time of either the Revolutionary or Civil War, I believe the latter, the Free Quakers split off from the main church because they disagreed with the idea that Quakers should not get involved with important political issues. In particular, they were highly patriotic and wanted to fight in the nation's wars (hence the Fighting Quaker moniker). So, in fact, the Penn Quakers are not pacifists.
Now, go ahead and call me a big nerd.
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