Don’t know the true backstory. I know it helps us differentiate (up here it’s Go Cougs for Washington State which is in the vicinity).
I would love to know the official story on how we got to “Coog”.
Good question; ever since I’ve been following (going back to the early 80’s), it’s always been Coogs. Can’t find anything online about it.
Might have just been a pronunciation thing as Coug doesn’t look like it makes the same sound as Coog.
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Vague memory of that being answered on the previous rendition of the coogfans web site.
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Site is long dead 
Purged by scout.
Eatemup would know!
I would like to bring this question back up. Was it The Daily Cougar?
Seems to me it was to differentiate from WSU. Up here it’s Go Cougs! For Washington State (of which we are named after).
I believe this goes back to the Phoenicians, who, with a very self consciously ironic sense of conceit, named their spelling “phonetic.”
The real question is why someone had to layer on superfluous spelling habits in subsequent ages, specifically spelling Cougar with the ‘U’. That someone would be the French, and if that isn’t self explanatory, I don’t know what is.
I am not far from WSU up here and see lots of “Go Cougs!” up here and my first instinct is to say: “HEY! THAT’S NOT RIGHT!”.
Yeah, me too, I’m in Anacortes up near Bellingham. Lots of Cougs in the farmland of the Skagit Valley.