This is the second in a series of posts ranking the nicknames of schools within conferences. We started out in the middle of the country with the Big 12 and Big Ten. Now we're going to slide south and east and cover the ACC and the SEC. As stated in the previous post, the teams included in each conference are accurate as of the upcoming 2023-24 academic year, so if you're looking for my comments/ranking on Texas and Oklahoma, you'll have to go to the Big 12 listing.
Here we go...starting with the ACC, which comes before the SEC alphabetically and which has a better mix of nicknames than the SEC, which is the worst among all Power 5/Power 6 conferences.
ACC School Nickname Rankings
12. Clemson Tigers - Bo-ring. Also, purple? Orange I can get, but purple?
11. Boston College Eagles - Another lame, too common nickname. Zzzzzz.
10. Louisville Cardinals - Cardinals is not as common as tigers or eagles, but it's not exactly unique, seeing as how schools like Ball State and Illinois State also use it. Demerits as well for using too little red and too much black in their uniform color schemes.
9. NC State Wolfpack - There are four ACC schools in North Carolina and this nickname is the most vanilla of the four. It's not terrible, but it's not great, either.
8. Florida State Seminoles - As I have stated previously, I'm not a fan of Native American nicknames/mascots. While most schools who used to have them have since changed to different nicknames, Florida State has been one of the few holdouts. However, the school has also worked closely with the Seminole tribe in Florida to ensure that the tribe supports the nickname and that it is used in a manner that they deemed appropriate and inoffensive. There is still controversy surrounding it, as the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma has condemned the continued use of the Seminoles nickname by FSU. I struggled with where to rank this one, so it slides in just above the bottom third.
7. Duke Blue Devils - At first glance, Blue Devils seems like an odd choice for a school that was originally tied to Methodism and The Methodist Church. But further research indicates that the name was chosen to honor a World War I French infantry battalion (Chasseurs Alpins) who was nicknamed "les Diables Bleus" which translates to English "the Blue Devils." It has absolutely nothing to do with the university or the area in which it is located, but it's also not overly common, so it comes in in the middle of the pack of ACC nicknames.
6. Syracuse Orange - I struggled with where to put this one because it has its roots in the school's former nickname "Orangemen," which was a Native American pejorative. The school also used a Native American mascot from the early 1930s until the late 1970s. The school eventually went with just the color orange, which itself was chosen in tribute to the Netherlands, which originally colonized New York state and the many places in upstate New York that have Dutch heritage. They dropped the Native American references and introduced a new mascot in the 1990s, Otto the Orange, who is an anthropomorphic orange. It is unique and thus it moves into the top half of our list.
5. Virginia Cavaliers - This nickname has its roots in the days of Colonial Virginia and those colonists who were supporters of the English crown during the English Civil War in the mid 1600s. Those folks were known as the "Virginia Cavaliers" and the name was eventually adopted by the athletic teams at UVA and eventually the students and alums as a whole. Very seldom does an American university's nickname have roots that go back to colonial times, making this one pretty unique.
4. Virginia Tech Hokies - A nickname that made the list of weirdest nicknames in my earlier blog post, this is a nickname based upon a made-up, nonsense word. The term evolved from a spirit cheer developed in 1896, the majority of which is a bunch of gibberish. For some reason, the "Hokie" part stuck and the teams were named after that. Because no one knows what the hell a hokie is, the team's actual mascot at sporting events is an anthropomorphic turkey-like creature, a nod to the informal nickname of the "Fighting Gobblers" that Tech fans have used for their teams since the 1920s. Whether you call them the "Hokies" or the "Gobblers," it's a weird mascot either way but it's also unique, which puts it in the top third of our list for the ACC.
3. Wake Forest Demon Deacons - Originally, Wake Forest's sports teams were known as the "Fighting Baptists," which might be the coolest and most accurate name in the history of sports.
However, in 1923, following a big football win, a sportswriter said that the Deacons "fought like demons" and the "Demon Deacons" moniker came to fruition and then stuck. It's certainly an odd nickname, though it still has a connection to the old Baptist roots of the university. Their logo, though, can be best described as "angry old man wearing top hat," which isn't as awesome as "Fighting Baptists" and is admittedly a little too wordy to actually use as the name of the teams.
2. North Carolina Tar Heels - This is another unusual nickname that made my earlier list of the weirdest college nicknames. In some ways, this one is similar to "Indiana Hoosiers" in the sense that it's a term broadly applied to the residents of the state, as well as the state's flagship university, but no one knows exactly where the name came from. It likely stems from the fact that things like tar and turpentine were early exports from North Carolina's pine forests and it was a term that grew in popularity during the Civil War. It was originally a pejorative but North Carolinians then turned it into a source of pride. It's unique and has a historical background that dates back to colonial times, so it ranks near the top of nicknames in the ACC.
1. Miami Hurricanes - This nickname made my list of the best overall, so it is no surprise that it ranks at the top of the ACC. Hurricanes is a great choice for a school in a city that has, unfortunately, experienced the wrath of hurricanes over the years. Whereas most nicknames pay tribute to animals or people, this one is an inanimate object but it is certainly still something strong that can strike fear into people.
So there's my list for the ACC. Now we move into the SEC, which may boast the best football and baseball teams but which arguably has the lamest collection of nicknames of any conference.
SEC School Nickname Rankings
14. Kentucky Wildcats - As I've said many times before, "wildcats" is the most generic, boring, unimaginative mascot possible.
13. Auburn Tigers - Another too common choice, but Auburn gets rated the lowest of the tiger nicknames in the conference in part because they also utilize another too common nickname/mascot with the whole "War Eagle" thing.
12. LSU Tigers - Another tigers and another school that has included the decidedly non-tiger color of purple to their palette. Small props for the "Bayou Bengals" moniker, though.
11. Missouri Tigers - Yep, yet ANOTHER tigers. However, Missouri gets the nod over the other two due to the fact that the nickname actually harkens back to the Civil War, as it was the nickname applied to a Union militia that protected Columbia during the war. They were called "The Missouri Tigers" and that helped lead to the nickname of the eventual teams at Mizzou. And, unlike the other tiger teams in the conference, Mizzou's black and gold color scheme makes sense.
10. Mississippi State Bulldogs - First wildcats, then tigers (x3) and now bulldogs? Yes, the SEC has a large number of lame, too common nicknames. There's really nothing more to say than that.
9. Georgia Bulldogs - Sigh. Another snoozer. But Georgia gets the nod over Mississippi State on account of Uga.
8. Texas A&M Aggies - I struggled with where to put this one and not because I dislike A&M. It's more a function of their myriad of mixed signals with regard to the nickname and mascot. Officially, it is "Aggies" which is about as bland and ordinary as you can get for a college whose routes lie in agriculture (see Utah State, New Mexico State, North Carolina A&T, among others). To further confuse things, they have a lot of military symbolism (on account of its Corps of Cadets, which is the largest senior military college in the country), but yet their mascot is a border collie named Reveille. It's all kind of a jumbled mess, so we'll throw it here in the middle of the pack.
7. Ole Miss Rebels - It's unique, but seeing as how it is ultimately rooted in the Confederacy and the Civil War, it's not necessarily a good unique. Kudos to ditching the old plantation owner Colonel Reb mascot, but I'm not sure what to make of replacing him with a bear and, now, a shark.
6. Vanderbilt Commodores - Finally, we start getting to some good, unique nicknames in the SEC. Vanderbilt is named after Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the lead gift to establish the university. Mr. Vanderbilt's nickname was "The Commodore" due to the fact that he made his fortune in shipping. It's unique and historically relevant, so it kicks off the better part of the SEC rankings.
5. Alabama Crimson Tide - Many of the more unique mascots in the college sports came out of sports stories and newspaper articles covering the schools' teams. This one is an example of that trend, as the "Crimson Tide" moniker first appeared in 1907 in a story about an Alabama-Auburn football game played on a muddy field in which Alabama's crimson uniforms stood out. Now, I'm not sure how an elephant became their mascot, but...
4. South Carolina Gamecocks - South Carolina's mascot has been the Gamecocks since 1900. A gamecock is a rooster bred for cockfighting, though my favorite definition of "gamecock" is one I saw on a bumper sticker on vacation in South Carolina years ago:
It's a little weird, but it's certainly unique and in a conference that doesn't have very many good nicknames, it slides in at #4.
3. Arkansas Razorbacks - It too a long time but we've FINALLY gotten to some good nicknames in the SEC. Having a team named after a bunch of feral pigs is very cool and seems somewhat appropriate for the state they represent, seeing as how feral swine are most prevalent in southern states like Arkansas and Texas. Arkansas also holds the distinction of being the only Division I program with a porcine mascot, even if it does result in that ridiculous "calling of the hogs" cheer. There's not much to like about Arkansas - certainly not their unjustly boastful fans, most of whom probably never went to college - but I have to give them props for their choice of a nickname.
2. Florida Gators - One of the first things people think about when they think of Florida - after beaches, palm trees, Disney and senior citizens - are alligators. Alligators are part of the lore of Florida, what with the Everglades and other swamps and fresh water lakes around the state. As such, it makes perfect sense for the state's primary land grant college to have Gators as their nickname. The fact that the nickname of the football stadium is "The Swamp" just adds to the equation. It might be an obvious choice, but it's still pretty perfect.
1. Tennessee Volunteers - Tennessee is "The Volunteer State," so named for their overwhelming response for volunteers to fight in the Mexican-American War in the 1840s. President Polk requested 2,600 volunteers nationwide and got more than 10 times that many volunteers from Tennessee alone. With that lineage, it makes perfect sense for the state's main university to christen its sports teams the Volunteers. It's unique and has historical significance, so it tops the list of nicknames in the SEC.
There you have it! My ranking of the school nicknames in the ACC and SEC. Stay tuned for another post in the near future where I'll rank the Pac12 and the Big East. Until then, thanks for reading!
