OXFORD, Miss. — When Levi West walks across campus on game day, admirers sprint to take his photograph. Women coo. Men slap him high-fives. The jovial, 25-year-old senior at the University of Mississippi is not a celebrity in his own right, though.

He owes his star power to his get-up — a knockoff of the university’s longtime mascot, a caricature of an antebellum Southern plantation owner.

“There’s no more of a noble cause than continuing the tradition of Colonel Reb,” said Mr. West, standing in the baking Mississippi heat in a giant stuffed mask and foam shoes. “Everyone loves the guy.”

Well, not quite everyone. After many years of complaints about the racial insensitivity of having a man dressed as a Confederate soldier as the symbol of a university where 14 percent of students are black, Ole Miss is pulling the plug on Colonel Reb this football season.