Will Bevo and Uga finally get a rematch?

The first meeting between Bevo and Uga ended in disaster. The second meeting was called off. Will the famous mascots meet again in Atlanta?

One of the fun storylines the first time the Texas Longhorns played the Georgia Bulldogs this season was – would we see a rematch between Bevo and Uga?

The first time the two met was in the 2019 Sugar Bowl, and things got ugly between the two. If you don’t remember, Bevo charged Uga on the sideline before the game when the handlers attempted a summit between two of the most famous live mascots in all of college football.

Back then, Georgia’s mascot was Uga X, nicknamed “Que.” Since the schools had such famous mascots, there was definitely an effort to show them off together. Earlier in the week, the two met but weren’t allowed to interact.

But things didn’t go so well when the decision was made to get them together on the sideline before the game for a photo op. Uga was brought by golf cart over near Bevo. Metal barricades, that were not secured to the ground, served as Bevo’s pen. As a confused Uga sniffed around the Super Bowl turf, Bevo suddenly charged through the barricades horns first and attempted to gore the bulldog.

The incident was caught live on ESPN. The Longhorns Network was actually doing play-by-play of the meeting. Uga’s handler did a good job of getting the pooch out of the way, while Bevo’s handlers, the Silver Spurs, desperately struggled to hang on.

The incident is without a doubt the most famous mascot interaction ever. Sadly, Uga X passed away on January 23, 2024, at the age of 10. Georgia is now on Uga XI, nicknamed “Boom.”

Bevo weighs roughly a ton and has a horn span of about seven feet from tip to tip. The steer has been the University of Texas mascot for a century. The current Bevo, No. XV, has been the mascot since September 3, 2016.

Uga dates back to 1956 when Sonny Seiler, a Savannah-based attorney that was featured in the true crime novel Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, brought his family bulldog to a game. That dog became Uga I.

But the second encounter between the steer and the dog at DKR in October didn’t happen. The mascot’s handler, Charles Seiler, said the decision not to travel to October’s game was based on logistics, rather than a hesitance to reunite with Bevo.

Uga lives in Savannah, Georgia, which is over 200 miles away from Athens, where the university is located. Seiler said the almost 5 hour trip to Athens to meet up with the team’s plane, plus the two hour flight would be too much for the English Bulldog.

“That’s a lot of wear and tear on the dog,” Seiler told the Austin American-Statesman. “…Those games way out in the middle of the country are hard for us to get to. This dog that we have ‒ well, he’s not new ‒ but he’s only two-and-a-half, and we haven’t flown him yet, and he hasn’t been on a team bus yet.”

Seiler, who is 64 years old, says he also has to consider the impact lengthy travel has on him. “Maybe when I was a younger man, I could do that,” he said. “But my wife says that’s a no-go.”

So, will this Saturday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta for the SEC Championship Game? We’ll see. Neither Texas or Georgia or the SEC have announced whether the mascots are heading to Atlanta. That goes for Uga and Bevo. Uga X was at the 2023 SEC Championship Game, so there’s hope!