Decision made on whether Bulldog mascot Uga will be at Georgia football game at Texas

There will be no round 2 of Uga vs. Bevo in Georgia football ’s top 5 matchup at Texas Saturday night.

The Bulldogs live mascot, Uga XI, is staying put in Savannah, his handler and owner Charles Seiler told the Athens Banner-Herald Friday morning.

“No dog,” Seiler said. “This dog is only two and two months. He hadn’t been on a plane yet, hand’t been on a bus yet. The trip is just too far for us.”

Savannah to Austin is some 1,100 miles apart.

Seiler said he would have had to drive five hours to Athens to get on a plane and fly with Georgia football.

“The worst part is coming back because I’ve got to jump in the car and drive home from Athens when the sun is coming up,” Seiler said. “That was OK when I was a younger man, but I’m 64 now. My wife tells me you ain’t doing that by yourself. I have a feeling I’m going to have problems reaching these  outer games. We haven’t been to Texas A&M yet because we just hadn’t had their home game yet.”

Uga X, known as Que, and Bevo infamously had a pregame incident before Texas’ 28-21 win over Georgia in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1, 2019 in New Orleans.

Texas mascot Bevo XV, an 18,000 pound longhorn steer, lunged towards the bulldog mascot in a photo-op on the sidelines in the Superdome prior to the game, sending photographers and other media members scurrying to get out of the way.

Austin-American Statesman photographer Nick Wagner injured his back in the incident.

Seiler drove to Indianapolis with Uga for the national championship game to end the 2021 season. He drove Uga to the Alabama game this year and returned back to Savannah at 7:30 a.m.

“With these added games and added playoff games, the road stuff is getting tough for us,” Seiler said.

Seiler said he can't fly on a commercial flight out of Savannah with Uga because he would have to go underneath like other pets are transported.

"That's kind of a no-go," he said.

Seiler said getting around with Uga if he took a private plane would be difficult once he landed and it's harder now to walk the dog outside of hotels.

Seiler said he was in touch with Ricky Brennes, executive director of the Silver Spurs Alumni Association which handles Bevo, about this trip.

Seiler said Uga is not ducking another meeting with Bevo.

"My dog grew up on a cotton farm in Moultrie, Georgia, and they have Longhorn steers," Seiler said. "They have a big fence between the bulldogs and the steers and my breeder will get week old bread and dump it out along the fence line and the bulldogs run over and try to eat as much as they can and the cows are sitting eat as much as they want. My dogs are used to cows. So we had no problem."

(This story was updated to add new information.)

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Decision made on whether Bulldog mascot Uga will be at Georgia football game at Texas