The Orange will not be represented at this year's Capital One Bowl.Oh, and the football team ain't playin' either (ba dum ching!).
Otto is the latest Syracuse failure to emerge from the gridiron. The top six mascots for the Capital One Mascot of the Year have been named and Otto is not among them. One of the twelve semi-finalists, Otto could only manage tenth place, besting Georgia Tech's Buzz and Oklahoma's Sooner.
On the website, Otto can quoted as saying
I grab my giant straw and send the energy from within myself into the crowd. This works like a charm every time. The crowd NEVER turns down some Otto juice.
That's either nonsensical or overtly-sexual depending on your point of view but either way, its things like that that make it easy to recognize where Otto feel short. Plus, there's this (sorry, embedding disabled).
The finalists are North Carolina State's Mr. Wuf, Maryland's Testudo, Auburn's Aubie, Western Kentucky's Big Red, Tennessee's Smokey, and Washington State's Butch T. Cougar.
But putting aside the pain, I have to draw your attention to a specific note in the press release.The panel of judges included mascot guru and historian, Dr. Roy Yarbrough...
Oh, its get better.
A former mascot himself, Yarbrough is the author of the 330-page "Mascots: The History of Senior/Junior College and University Mascots" and has been deemed the Guru of Mascotology. According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Yarbrough is basically on call for the NCAA and ESPN for all "mascot-related issues." I can only imagine his disdain over this nonsense.
It's that kind of dedication to an overly specific and unnecessary aspect of our culture that keeps Joe Lunardi and Mel Kiper. Jr going.