LOS ANGELES — If Georgia is going to win a second consecutive national championship in football, it will have to happen without its beloved mascot.
Uga X, known to the Charles Seiler family and elsewhere as “Que,” is not going to make the trip here for the Bulldogs’ game Monday night against TCU that will decide the 2022 championship. At 9 1/2 years old, Que simply is not strong enough to make the cross-country journey and handle all the obligations that come with such an assignment.
“I just wasn’t going to put him through it,” said Seiler, who raises UGA’s mascot dogs as pets in his hometown of Savannah. “That’s the deal.”
Uga X was in attendance last year when the Bulldogs defeated Alabama in Indianapolis for the 2021 title. But that trip was, of course, half as long and Que was a year younger.
Georgia’s white English bulldog mascots have one of the shorter life spans among canines. They generally experience significant health declines by 10 years. Ugas VII, VIII and IX each had relatively short tenures because of health problems.
Not having Uga on the sidelines for games is not all that unusual, according to Seiler. He did not make the trip to South Carolina because it was going to be so hot. And he similarly did not make trips to Missouri or Mississippi State because they are extremely long drives, and the weather was extremely cold.
“So, this is not really earth-shattering,” said Seiler, who said he’d been “doing media” all day Friday once word began spreading on social media. “We’re not doing a lot of long away games right now. I don’t think a lot of people know that.”
Uga IV missed the 1988 Liberty Bowl, and Uga VI did not try to make the 10-hour flight to Hawaii in 2000.
Just as tough on Seiler is that fact that he won’t be in Los Angeles to watch the Bulldogs take on the Horned Frogs. He has witnessed Georgia’s past two national championships in person. But there are some things he’s looking forward to about watching the game at home on his basement television.
“This is a helluva one to have to miss because I’d love to see us win another one,” Seiler said. “My place is with my dog. And we’ve got a younger dog here, Que’s son, actually, he’s 6 months and he’s in training. So we’re going to try to get him acclimated to things. We’ll throw a jersey on him and turn the TV up loud to get him used to the noise and excitement.
“And it’ll be good for me to get to actually watch a game instead of me having to sneak glimpses on a jumbotron.”
