A friend of mine just started his own business and his partner just happens to be a huge Auburn booster living in Utah County. I had the chance to meet him last week and was curious to talk football with him. He is not LDS and grew up in Alabama. He came to Utah for a business opportunity years ago, and when some of his kids followed him out here he ended up staying. He is a season ticket holder and flies out to no less than 4 home games per year but tries to make all of them plus any road game that works with is schedule (usually 2-3). He showed me his pregame sideline pass and ticket from the national championship game last year so I know he is not lying when he says he is a true addict.

One of the most interesting things he talked about was how he really wanted to get into the local college football scene when he came here. After he arrived he went to watch BYU play and just couldn't get into it. He says that even as a neutral fan he was extremely bothered that he felt more invested in the program than all of the BYU fans in the stadium. He said it felt like people were missing out on all of the things that make college football fun. Specifically he mentioned the lack of tailgating, and crowd noise. During a loss to Marshall Faulk and SDSU he remembered being completely floored by all of the fans ganging up on one guy on his row that was bad mouthing the teams performance. This is where I thought things got interesting. This guy who has spent by my estimate in excess $1,000,000 on his team was actually in support of the guy who was vocalizing his displeasure with BYU's play that day. He says that those are the type fans who are truly addicted to the team and are willing to invest which is why they get so emotional. In his opinion BYU has too many fans that go to support the church and the purpose and only hope for good football. That culture he claims has closed BYU off to a lot of the funner things about college football that we could enjoy as well but don't know how. He doesn't see why mormons can't have just as good a time at a tailgate without Alcohol and mentioned that he stopped game day drinking a few years ago when he missed a Cam Newton go ahead touchdown pass in a huge comeback against Bama. He drank so much without peeing that he waited and waited until he was about to soil himself and missed the TD by a few seconds as a result. I digress, The point he made was that BYU has created and attitude of show up 10 minutes before kick off and go home. That is of course fine if people do not want to invest more time and dollars but they cannot expect to always have the big time game day atmosphere and lure if they don't. He said he thinks BYU needs more of the addicted type fans that love BYU AND College Football that will show up hours and in some cases days early to tailgate, barbecue, set up their big screens, and support the team, game day atmosphere, and crowd noise. He said the LDS culture has created a situation where everyone wants to enjoy the tailgate and hear the stadium rocking on its own foundation but they don't care enough to actually go set up their own tailgate or scream their lungs out on first down in the second quarter. In his eyes, BYU fans expect the university to provide a great atmosphere when in reality the fans create the atmosphere and the program then needs to build on that. For those who watched CFB Gameday this week, the Miss. St. coach said something along the lines of "The team doesn't win games and the fans suddenly show up and get loud, the fans show up and get loud and the team wins as a result."


Sidenote: He mentioned that he hates the yewts but admits they are doing it the right way on game day. He was at the BYU Utah game when they yewts tried to tear down the goalpost at LES after they won. After he saw that he was so offended that Utah had broken "sacred college football etiquette" that he has hated them and their anti byu-identity ever since. His words not mine.