The SEC has the Georgia Bulldogs and the Mississippi State Bulldogs. They also have the Auburn Tigers and Louisiana State University Tigers.
Does any other sports league or conference have teams with the same nickname? The NHL comes close with the St. Louis Blues and the Columbus Blue Jackets.
The Canadian Football League used to have the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the Ottawa Rough Riders. The latter team is now defunct.
The Atlantic 10 Conference has two Rams - Fordham and URI.
Also, the WAC has two Aggies - New Mexico State and Utah State.
In case you haven’t seen College Nicknames – updated on 20 February 2010 you might enjoy it.
The Pac-10 also comes close with the Cal Golden Bears and the UCLA Bruins. So close that Cal students can be sighted at Cal-UCLA games wearing T-shirts with the logo “Get your own Damn Bear!.”
The California Golden Bear (Ursus arctos californicus) was a subrace of the Brown (or Grizzly) Bear that is now, sadly, extinct.
The Golden Bear was endemic to California; which is why it is a little surprising to see on Zeldar’s link that colleges in such unlikely places as Minnesota, Massachusetts, and West Virginia have the Golden Bear as a mascot.
Do the Red Sox and the White Sox count? They’re both commonly referred to as the “Sox” by people in their respective home cities.
Some reports say that UGA copied Yale’s mascot as a friendly tribute to the elder institution.
Others state that the first live canine mascot for UGA was a bull terrier named Trilby and that was the origin of the ‘bulldog’ nickname.
— http://www.georgiadogs.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=8800&ATCLID=454891
West Virginia Tech has the Golden Bears. WVU is the Mountaineers.
The Southern Conference also has two Bulldogs (The Citadel and Samford).
It’s Division II, but the GLIAC (Great Lakes) has two Lakers (Grand Valley State and Lake Superior State). What makes this more interesting is that up until a year ago, the Mercyhurst Lakers were also members.
Three of the schools that use Tigers (Grambling State, Jackson State, and Texas Southern) are all in the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC), which comprises historically black schools.
The University of Northern Iowa Panthers and Eastern Illinois Panthers used to face each other in the Association of Mid-Continent Universities, but Northern Iowa is now in the Missouri Valley Conference, while Eastern Illinois is an Ohio Valley Conference institution. (Meanwhile, the AMCU changed its name to the Mid-Continent Conference before settling – at least for now – on the designation of Summit League.)
ACC has 2 similar mascots - Duke Blue Devils and Wake Forest Demon Deacons. Ironically both schools started out with strong religious ties - Methodist (Duke) and Baptist (Wake Forest). Both still have divinity schools in spite of their mascots.
The American Hockey League has the Milwaukee Admirals and the Norfolk Admirals.
[Hijack]Ga Tech and Auburn are two schools who have official and unofficial nicknames that are quite dissimilar.
Ga Tech is officially the Yellowackets but are widely know as the Ramblin’ Wreck.
Auburn is officially the Tigers but they love to yell “War Eagle”
I am sure there are other schools like this but I can’t think of any. I am not talking about teams that might be known as their school colors. Example: Nebraska is often referred to as “Big Red”
Virginia Cavaliers are also called the Wahoos or Hoos. It’s based on their rallying cry “Wah-hoo-wah”
The Northeast Conference doesn’t have any, but it does have two St. Francises (one in Brooklyn, one in Pennsylvania).
In 1875, the National Association, the forerunner to major league baseball, had the Boston Red Stockings and very briefly, the St Louis Red Stockings. The latter was a local amateur team that decided to go professional but folded after 19 games. St Louis also had a more professional team, the Brown Stockings. What was it with 19th century teams, having nick names after their socks?
Another one I forgot: the Ohio Valley Conference has two teams named the Eagles: Tennessee Tech and Morehead State. Morehead State’s basketball team is notable for having been coached by Dick Fick (now deceased) in the early 1990s.
The worst is the English Premier Leagues. There are four teams nicknamed “The Blues”: Birmingham City, Chelsea, Everton, and Manchester City. Meanwhile, there are two “Whites” (Fulham and Bolton), and then, just to round things out, the “Blue and Whites” (Blackburn). I suppose in context it all makes sense.