fan base.

Unlike in football the Utes do have a totally organic and very impressive basketball tradition. Six visits to the Elite 8. Four Final Fours. A HoF coach. And so so close to winning the whole thing in 97. An overall #1 pick in Andrew Bogut in 2005.

And in spite of all of that legit, high caliber history - they run into some headwinds, have a few down seasons, the fan base bails. I was at BYU during the infamous 1-26 97 season when we just barely avoided going 0-27. I went to 3-4 games that year and I seriously think our attendance was better if not on par with what some reasonably competitive if not especially good Utah teams have drawn in the last decade - but DEFINITELY better attendance in 98 and 99 when I was also there and we still were not good.

But for Utah fans it was basically that as soon as the tide turned for BYU to be the better basketball program once we were in the Jimmer era, they just flipped off the switch and went to pout.

I'm not gonna bet against Kyle yet. As much as I detest his petulant, passive-aggressive face he's got enough of the dog that he may muster one last stand. But I suspect that once Utah has a couple of seasons in which they're just another team in a truck stop conference, their fake fan base is gonna fall apart and disappear just like it did for basketball.