Sidebar, your honor...

Inspired by a CBS Sportsline feature on mascots, I got to thinking about how mascots would actually fare against each other in a mortal cage match. I thought this would be a nice thoughtless diversion from law school finals, so I'm doing a multi-part tournament, Celebrity Death Match style, of top college mascots. (sorry, Irish fans, but the spring analysis has been shelved until after finals - too much work to do)

I disagreed with many of the seedings of the mascots in the CBS version and the omission of several teams, so I decided to create my own 32 team bracket, with traditional Irish opponents and historically successful programs (plus Indiana, because I can), seeded according to the team's historical ranking from College Football Data Warehouse, and roughly separated into North and South.

Here is the preliminary bracket:

North

1 Notre Dame Fightin' Irish
16 Boston College Eagles

2 Michigan Wolverines
15 Indiana Hoosiers

3 Ohio State Buckeyes
14 Navy Midshipmen

4 Nebraska Cornhuskers
13 Colorado Buffaloes

5 Tennessee Volunteers
12 Purdue Boilermakers

6 Penn State Nittany Lions
11 Army Black Knights

7 Pittsburgh Panthers
10 Stanford Cardinal

8 Washington Huskies
9 Michigan State Spartans

South

1 Alabama Crimson Tide
16 Air Force Falcons

2 USC Trojans
15 Southern Methodist Mustangs

3 Oklahoma Sooners
14 North Carolina Tarheels

4 Texas Longhorns
13 UCLA Bruins

5 LSU Tigers
12 Florida State Seminoles

6 Georgia Tech Yellowjackets
11 Texas A&M Aggies

7 Georgia Bulldogs
10 Auburn Tigers

8 Miami Hurricanes
9 Florida Gators

Each matchup will be broken down in individual posts during study breaks throughout finals week. Stay tuned.