To go to the Ute/Oregon St game saturday with the in-laws I had to wear a ute cap. I felt dirty. I hoped I would not see anyone I knew as I snuck around the cap pulled down low in an attempt to cover my eyes. I repented Sunday. I also bot and wore a black golf shirt from Walmart. I purposely did not get one with any logo on it. (that may be more a function of me being cheap, to be honest!)
I will say, it was a great crowd. It was fun. They love their utes. Parking at Smiths and taking Tracks to within 50 yards of the stadium gate was so much better than parking by the MTC and walking a mile to Edwards stadium. Of course I like watching the Cougars better, but appreciate the utes and their fans.
2 games in 3 days was a blast.
Gotta give the utes a little love - their coach is a former Cougar after all. But just a little love.
I live in Utah so when Utah is not playing the cougs. I cheer them on. Can’t stand the Ute fans though.
It is interesting that Whit, who robs the best players for defense seems to have learned from his past and has opened up the offense this year.
My good neighbor and longtime friend (interesting story), works for Utah AD’s office.
I will cheer on Utah whenever they are not playing BYU, because I think the State of Utah has some outstanding Head coaches and a lot of talented players who grew up in Utah.
When I have gone to the games, the fans (who are not students) are generally fun to banter with and it is all done in fun… The students, well that is entirely different story,
My only time having a bad experience around Utah fans was when BYU was playing there. My wife who is a Utah Alum got tickets for me as a present for my birthday (very belated birthday present).
We sat in the middle of a sea of red, I was like a blue dot in the middle of it. We had fun bantering with each other, all in good fun. Two students were seating below us, all through the game they were saying “F” this and “F” that.
I politely asked them to refrain from swearing because there were women and children around. They told me to “F” off. Being who I am, I started to raise up to confront these two, when a big hand was put on my shoulder from a Utah fan behind me. I turned around and this black dude who must have been 6-5, 300 lbs looked at me and said, “I will handle this”.
He got up and yelled at the two students who was about to say something when they saw how large this guy was, they clamped their mouths shut. He “politely” told them to leave, or he would remove them personally. They got up and left.
I went to a game 10 years ago at BYU versus Utah and we won in OT with the pass to George. There was a lot of Red in the crowd. Lots of split families. So, why doesn’t it look like this at Utah?
In SLC there is a lot of animosity towards the church, so a lot of the Anti-Mormons will go out of their way to harass families wearing blue. These knuckleheads may or may not be even attending the games.
on an off topic, the church is doing a new program called “My hometown” where they will come work with a city to go in and “Spruce up” someone home. They ask for volunteers from the community (member or not of our faith) to do the manual labor, they have resources to supply the material, either low cost or free.
Leadership believes that this will help people stay in the community they are now living in. Two years ago, West Valley City had 7K residents move out for various reasons. Last year I thought it was around 1K.
They have agreements with West Valley City, Ogden, and couple of other cities. What surprised me was that Salt Lake City wanted no part of working with the church on this. The church went around them and is working with some inner-city organizations to help homeowners upgrade their homes.
I bring this up because it demonstrates the way people living in SLC feels about the church and BYU.
Well, I thought you said BYU isn’t the Church. And, there are plenty of active members attending U of U.
This is about being in attendance in a football stadium. Why aren’t U of U alumni and students inviting their BYU family and friends? That has nothing to do with anti-Church people in SLC.
BYU isn’t “The church” scott, it is OWNED by the church… Jeez…
Like I have said forever, good LDS people go to Utah for various reasons. it is a good school for multiple reasons.
Like I said that the majority of the Utah fans are good people and never have problems with BYU fans. If you notice most incident that people have are with the “student” section. The majority of the students are not from Utah (I think it is like 40% of students come from Utah).
Many of those people go to the Utah games… so I am not sure how you can say this with a straight face. The fact that the good utah fans keeps these people in check while at the game is a good thing.
Still soft-shoeing around the real question I asked. Why aren’t Utard fans inviting BYU family and friends to the game like BYU fans do? You say a sea of red at their place but at BYU there is a pretty good mix of blue and red. More blue still. This isn’t a Church question. It’s not an non-member or member thing.
Another observation from Utah Oregon State game.
Our quarterback is better. Granted just one game I saw. (Bad Moon) Rising missed a number of throws - usually too low. Can be a punishing runner tho.
Our receivers are better. Their runners weren’t standout. Overall, I think our offense is considerably better.
Our defense? uhmmm. Probably not as good. utes did intercept 4, but OSU ran on them quick a bit.
Great story Floyd. A friend of mine in Detroit had a similar story - a big black dude (a stranger) helping i.e., protecting him when his car broke down in a not so good area.
In those statement did you see me say anything about Utah fans? NO!
There are people who are not Utah fans that attends games, same as there are people who attend BYU games that are not BYU fans… They love watching football (I know several people who attend both BYU and Utah games).
The student’s section at both schools has caused enough problems for people that they think all fans of said school’s problems.
I have attended about 20 games of the Utah/BYU rivalry and have never EVER had any issues with the Utah fans. They like to have fun like BYU fans and do some teasing back and forth, but they have always been respectful towards me. Like I said originally, the student section is a different animal.
I agree, Floyd- There is a large contingency of Ute fans who are not so much Utah fans as Mormon haters. They do and say anything and everything they can to slam the Church and his members, it’s doctrines, practices and everything else church related. I have ZERO respect for those people. They mock, belittle and shame everyone and anything associated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in any way possible. Any discussion about Utah fans must include this type of Ute fan.
