Seven Days...

One Week...

Seven Days...

One Hundred & Sixty Eight Hours...

Ten Thousand & Eighty Minutes...

Six Hundred & Four Thousand Eight Hundred Seconds...

I Think you all know what this post is about, Big Blue is only ONE WEEK away from being the Capital One Mascot of the Year! After the EPIC journey through the SemiFINALs against the Oregon Duck and as I write this post, Big Blue is up against Paydirt Pete in the FINALS. 

It has been one heck of a journey for Big Blue in the past 14 weeks, and this week is the most important. Just seven days separate this fierce lion from being THE best mascot in the country. Last week was the most nerve racking yet; yes we had over 200,000 votes when we went up against Monte and that was WITH the Text-to-Vote option; but last week Big Blue fans put up over 750,000 votes! Each night as I was sending in my last votes for the day, Big Blue would have a reasonable lead of about five thousand votes, but each morning the Duck would have the lead once again. The first morning was 3K, second 13K, and the third, forth, and fifth Monarch fans had to make up over twenty thousand votes. Each morning we were able to make up the deficit within three or four hours, but on the sixth day of the round, Monarch nation was not able to regain the lead, holding at a 13K deficit for most of the day. Some may have given up hope, but later in the afternoon, Big Blue fans took advantage of the Oregon/Oregon State game, coming back from a 13K deficit within just a few hours, Big Blue was up more than 20K by nightfall. This left 24 hours until voting ended. Voters woke up to a 28K lead, and it only went up from there. On the eve of competition end, the votes were crawling because of the traffic on the Capital One site, but Monarch fans kept at it, coming out victorious on Monday morning defeating the Duck by almost sixty thousand votes!

Take a break from reading & VOTE!

Looking at my earlier post, we all know that the Capital One site was super slow, and sometimes we even thought that it was down for just Big Blue voters. According to Capital One it happened to all of the schools due to sheer traffic on the voting site. I am very appreciative of Capital One when handling this situation, with each email, sent in reply to a complaint, they assured that the site was dysfunctional for everyone and not just ODU. Frustrating I know, but the Monarchs were able to "SURVIVE the 404" and pull out a win despite the difficulties in voting. GO MONARCHS!

Big Blue could not have pulled out the win against the Duck without the help from his fans, Old Dominion University, radio stations, and the local media. On more than one occasion this past week, Big Blue fans crowded into the Webb Center of ODU to have a vote mob in order to rally votes for the Monarch Mascot. Each of the three major news stations was there to cover all of the action; two of those have footage posted online of Vote Mobs & Big Blue in the studio pushing for votes.  Big Blue & his fans could not thank them enough for getting him the exposure that helped him to pull off the win. Below are links to each of the videos:

WVEC Channel 13: Big Blue needs YOUR vote!, Vote Big Blue!

Wavy TV 10: Semi-Finals Video , Finals Video

Need another break from reading? VOTE HERE

This is it, the last week, the final time you are able to make a difference in the voting, the ONLY thing between Big Blue and the title. Voting has commenced for the Finals of the Capital One Mascot of the Year Challenge and Big Blue is in the finals against THE only other mascot who was able to remain undefeated, Paydirt Pete of UTEP.  We were never against Pete in the regular season, so this is a battle of the UNDEFEATED mascots (which is how the finals should be). There are similarities in the final mascots, the same undefeated record & both are from schools that not every recognizes, but one clear difference is the number of votes for each mascot during the challenge thus far. Paydirt Pete has just over one million votes (1,070,000) to Big Blue’s almost two million (1,830,000). This is a key difference, but do NOT let that fool you, because there is no ticker on the voting site for the finals. Just because you cannot see the vote totals, does NOT mean that Big Blue is winning, we have no idea of the totals. Our strategy this week is to vote as if Big Blue is losing!

So this week I ask that you vote as if Big Blue is in a deficit (as he was many times last week), so that we can guarantee as many votes for Big Blue as possible. VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! GO BIG BLUE, BEET PEET, BEAT PEAT, BETE PETE, BEAT PETE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!