WSU Cougars vs Colorado State Rams: Bowl Game and Mascot History of Both Teams

Nov 16, 2013; Tucson, AZ, USA; Washington State Cougars mascot Butch celebrates during the fourth quarter against the Arizona Wildcats at Arizona Stadium. The Cougars beat the Wildcats 24-17. Mandatory Credit: Casey Sapio-USA TODAY Sports

So the “Cougar” name was adopted in the year 1919 to Washington State College, but an actual mascot didn’t arrive til 1927 when a Cougar cub finally jumped on the scene. He was named after the Cougs’ first truly remembered football star, Herbert “Butch” Meeker.

Butch T. was a live cougar until 1978. After Butch T. Cougar VI died, the University decided it was time to parade out a walmart special for their teams, which was probably, definitely the correct choice. You can’t run a real Cougar onto the field for obvious reasons and it certainly can’t lead a “Go Cougs” cheer, so yeah.

The bowl history of Washington State is actually very good, dating back to 1915 and taking a 60% win total. The Cougars won three in a row from 1988 to 1994, went to two Rose Bowls in a five year span and most recently (if you can call a decade ago recent) beat a young Vince Young and his Texas Longhorns in the 2003 Holiday Bowl.

Fun fact; Washington State has played in four Rose Bowls in it’s history, 1915, 1930 (their first two bowl games ever), 1998 and 2003. The results below don’t take into account the New Year’s Day factor of the new Rose Bowl format, reverting to the season and not the date of the actual bowl.

We mentioned this last week in an article about Chris Petersen taking the UW job, but just for the fun of it I’m going to also point out that the last two postseason appearances in Pasadena signify that WSU has gone to one more Rose Bowl then the Washington Huskies since 1992. The Cougs have also doubled the Dawgs in eight win seasons at six to three in that time span, each of which accounted for the only bowls in that time span for WSU. All of that has nothing really to do with this bowl game but had to take my shot on the Dawgs there for no reason at all.