Branden Lombardi staff writer

Tomorrow, Arizona Stadium will be overrun with Horned Frogs ÷ and no, I don't mean my drunken fraternity brothers looking for the next hot freshman girl they want to hook up with.

No, sports fans ÷ I am talking about the TCU Horned Frogs.

TCU not only brings one of the cleverest nicknames in college sports to Tucson, but also its No. 17 ranking in the ESPN/USA Today coaches poll (No. 19 Associated Press).

However, instead of breaking down the overwhelming rushing attack that TCU has, or the continuing, insufferable migraine that is John Mackovic and the Arizona Wildcat football team, I felt it was time to lighten the mood and discuss something that really matters: Nicknames.

So just how does a school come up with its nickname? Sometimes, fabled stories lead to the creation of a nickname, as was the case for one of the most famous nicknames in all of college sports, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

Legend has it that Notre Dame, known as the "Catholics" and "Ramblers" in the early days of athletic competition, became the Fighting Irish after adopting the term originally used as an insult towards the athletes of Jesuit University.

Whether this story is entirely true or not is unknown, but however the name came about, it is one of the most recognizable and best nicknames in sports today.

Sometimes, schools adopt an icon of the region that the school is located in.

Ohio State University decided to pay homage to the state of Ohio by adopting the nickname "Buckeyes".

A Buckeye is a large, brown seed that appears on the Ohio state tree.

Is this a nickname representative of the entire state of Ohio? Yes.

Is this a nickname as boring as the entire state of Ohio? Most definitely.

Some schools decide to use animals that inhabit the area that the schools are located in as their nicknames.

The University of California-Santa Cruz, being the eco-friendly university that it is, decided to choose the Banana Slug as its nickname.

While there may be banana slugs in the Santa Cruz area (although having been there numerous times, I have never seen one), it would be more representative of the area if they changed their nickname to the University of California-Santa Cruz Forty-Year-Old Pot Smoking, Birkenstock-Wearing, Washed-Up Hippies.

Believe me: You can never wander too far in the city of Santa Cruz without spotting one of these local creatures.

Here at the UA, our own Wildcat moniker was adopted after Los Angeles Times columnist Bill Henry wrote, in 1914, that "the Arizona men showed the fight of Wildcats," after the UA football team played Occidental College.

A year later, a real desert bobcat named "Rufus" was brought in as the school's first mascot and named after former UA President Rufus von KleinSmid. According to Wildcat archives, however, the original Rufus' stint as mascot ended after just a few months, after the bobcat accidently strangled himself while tied to a tree.

A live animal was used as until the mid-1950s, while the live-version of the UA mascot was named Wilbur in 1959.

While we have plenty of tradition tied to being the Wildcats, the problem is that we aren't alone in our pursuit of projecting this ferocious image.

Thirty-one other NCAA and NAIA colleges and universities share the Wildcat nickname, from Kansas State University to Randolph-Macon Women's College.

Add other nicknames such as the Bears, Bulldogs, Cougars, Warriors and Cardinals, and you have half of the schools in the country accounted for.

And as boring and unimaginative as these nicknames are, there are plenty of schools out there that flexed their creative muscles in coming up with their nicknames.

You may have heard about schools with creative nicknames such as the Alabama Crimson Tide.

Or perhaps you have heard of the Tulane Green Wave. Maybe the Kent State Golden Flashes. But I doubt you have heard of the Little Johns of Pennsylvania State University-Abington.

While these nicknames are all quite creative, they do not make it into my top 10 list of greatest college nicknames.

Obviously, this list is purely subjective based on my own weird infatuation with the topic of nicknames. And if I have missed a school that you feel belongs on the list, keep it to yourself.

Without further ado, I offer you the top 10 greatest ÷ well, if not greatest, at least most interesting ÷ college sports nicknames. In descending order:

10) South Dakota School of Mines and Technology Hardrockers

· How can you go wrong with a name like the Hardrockers? Even if it is just a pun, it is pretty creative for a school that trains people to dig up rocks for a living.

9) Connecticut College Camels

· I may be going out on a limb with this prediction, but who wants to bet that alcohol was involved when they came up with this nickname?

8) St. Louis Billikens

· This one is included based on the fact that no one has any idea what a Billiken is.

The Saint Louis Web site says it is a symbol of good luck ÷ but look at their logo and it will only confuse you more.

7) Converse College All-Stars

· This is no joke. Converse College is a women's-only school located in Spartanburg, South Carolina. I don't know about women's colleges ever since the portrayal of those girls in Animal House, but hey, at least they have a good nickname.

6) Brooklyn College-City University of New York Bridges

· Okay, here they took the easy route and chose a nickname that represented what Brooklyn is second best known for: Bridges. I guess they couldn't work Muggings into a nickname.

5) Gettysburg College Bullets

· The NBA's Washington Wizards used to be known as the Washington Bullets, but bowed to political correctness and changed their name. Gettysburg gets points for upholding its tradition. Bullets are still lodged in buildings on the campus from the famous battle.

4) Pittsburg State University Gorillas

· Again, I am going to go out on a limb on this one, but I doubt that the town of Pittsburg, Kansas, has ever seen a Gorilla.

3) University of Alaska-Southeast Humpback Whales

· Nothing like watching the Humpback Whales drive down the field in the final two minutes to beat the Gorillas.

2) Tufts University Jumbos

· I am surprised the ACLU hasn't forced Tufts to change their nickname to the "Big-Boned Individuals" ÷ or at the very least, to "oversized."

1) Pacific Lutheran University Lutes

· PLU's legendary head coach, Frosty Westering ÷ who's got a great name himself ÷ is the grandfather of former UA quarterback Jason Johnson. Johnson's brother, Chad, is also a PLU assistant coach. With those UA ties, maybe we can offer them a trade: Wildcats for Lutes, straight up. I would be proud to be a University of Arizona Lute!