What the h*** happened to Utah’s online reputation?

[Utesbyfive]

Posters on Twitter and Reddit are absolutely trashing our school and fanbase. Can anyone put their finger on how this happened? Is this a coordinated effort by zoobs or is this literally just a couple of our loud asshole fans on those platforms?

[NarfUte]

Fans like Pig Bus (Ryan) have been really loud assholes

[Ute2]

I’ll devils advocate this one…

I imagine some of our fans have reacted poorly to all this and come off very poorly to the big12, etc.

We we’re at the top of an awesome conference with blue-bloods, great cities, etc. Inferior teams are going to the big ten and the awesome situation that we’re on the tip-top of is falling apart. And I hope we’re in the big12 at this point but there isn’t a usc, Oregon, Washington, Stanford, ucla for us to beat up on the there. There’s some good schools but it’s…., not the same.

So it stands to reason that we’re irritable, in denial, arrogant(2time defending champs might be a bit arrogant), etc in our online interactions…

[Tacoma Ute]

I haven’t read the Twitter or Reddit posts but the comments on YouTube have been horrendous. Arrogant and assholish (is that a word).

Big 12 fans on YouTube almost universally hate us and don’t want us to join, thanks to a handful of keyboard warriors.

[GameForAnyFuss]

Remember, though, that online fandom is like 1% of actual fandom. It’s just the really hardcore people online. The other 99% have nothing against (or for) us.

[Anfernee]

Don’t let the sewage cesspool define a nice city. It’s a few loudmouths from the unreal land of the internet. I’ll let opposing fans decide how we are through real game day experiences and human to human interactions.

[AZUTE]

A very load vocal minority has painted Utah fans in a very bad light. Especially when it comes to potential joining the big12.

Over the last couple of months a few like pig bus have gone to absolute war on Twitter with fanbases from just about all big12 schools

[AlohaUte]

Utah has a handful of just terrible fans,  way worse than any I’ve seen from BYU and that’s saying something.  Most aren’t like that,  but the handful that are are on Twitter and complete asses. 

Anyone remember the old Utefans.net. what a cess pool that became.  What I think the problem is is that you get a handful of ex Mormons who live in Utah and need to make sure everyone knows they aren’t Mormon anymore so they swing the pendulum way too far and go nuts online.  (Note, most ex Mormon ute fans are not this easy,  but I think some are). UF.n was full of these folks and it became a site that was more focused on progressivism and anti Mormon than it did Utah sports. 

[AlohaUte]

For the record, Utah fans on Reddi/ are great overall. It’s the fans on Twitter that are complete trash.

[UtMtBiker]

Twitter is trash in general so it makes sense

[EagleMountainUte]

Online reputation…need to virtue signal more. Put some Ukraine flags around the drum and feather or something.  

[chinngiskhaan]

Why don’t Big12 fans like us? Because they know we’ll be number 1 or 2 the second we join the conference, and they don’t like that.

They like TSPP because they aren’t a threat. They are a nice little team that will treat them nice and put butts in seats. They know there is zero chance TSPP becomes a perennial Big12 contender.

[BD]

Some Ute fans mainly on Twitter trashing the Big-XII, their locations (referring to them as “truck stop” cities over and over). Combined with some “depression/anger” phases of a cycle we are in causing these Ute fans to magnify their frustrations and take it out on Big-XII fans (amplified by their dislike of BYU who is in the conference).

Also, some over-confident Ute fans saying things like we would instantly be conference champions. Don’t get me wrong – we know Utah would compete for the top portion of the XII right away, but instantly being the champions isn’t a given, nor a good way to portray ourselves – and understandably some XII fans are defensive about that.

Combined with what are probably several thousand BYU fans mainly from CougarBoard with their Twitter accounts taking full advantage of their opportunity to finally convince the world that (according to them) we are the worst people on the planet, that our university and football/sports programs are trash, etc. They “like”, retweet hundreds of times, add hundreds of comments, mock, laugh, trash our fanbase, exaggerate everything, etc. I haven’t browsed Cougarboard, but I can imagine there are pages and pages of posts absolutely trashing us, and loving every moment of it.

Granted, we only have ourselves to blame, but then again it is a small percentage of our fanbase – few dozen, maybe a few tens of dozens at the very most that are doing this. I wish they would tone it down. The overwhelming majority of Ute fans don’t know who or what a “Pig Bus” is, and don’t use Twitter. And, I would imagine that the overwhelming majority of Ute fans, while wishing that the Pac-12 had never come to this point, would be respectful to Big-XII fans and their programs.

Unfortunately, it takes only a little bit to ruin a reputation.

Just my thoughts on my casual observance of this all.

[HoosierUte]

B12 fans have a well-deserved chip on their shoulder. The Hateful-8 were only very recently on life support and being left to die by the other P5 conferences, while the G5-4 want to pretend they are big boys now and were not a last option desperate bid for survival. 

On top of all that, they don’t quite yet grasp the irrational hate for all things tds that we Ute fans feel, which was quickly poured onto the P12 vs B12 conferences as proxy. As a result, I am sure many Utah fans trashed the B12, not because we know anything about those schools, but because we have to trash anything tds related. 

[Central Coast Ute]

Pig Bus

[Ghost of the HEB]

Pig Bus said some stupid arrogant things that went viral among the big12 fan bases. And from there on the reputation has stuck. Doesn’t help that he doubles down any chance he gets.

[UteFanatic]

A few of our fans are extremely vocal and hostile about moving to the Big12 and it rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Big12/BYU fans have hated the Pac12 for a while now and Utah just became an easy target to direct their anger.

The Utah-BYU toxicity bled over and made it even worse.

 

[TX_UTE]

They hate us ’cause they ain’t us! Esp. the new members who weren’t asked to a Power 5 conference when Utah was…

[SkinyUte]

Jerkoffs like this don’t help.

Now that we are the top dog in the Big12 we need to lay out some ground rules:

-We aren’t happy about being here either, but we’re happy to beat the s**t of you while we are
-BYU, Cincy, UCF, and whatever that fourth school was are second rate Big12 members who can suck it
-Utah…

— Dwight SchrUTE 🌹🌹 (@DwightSchru_UTE) August 5, 2023

[Central Coast Ute]

That is really bad. I hate people saying Utah is just going to go in and dominate. Utah will be competitive, but they’ll be replacing a QB, relievers, tight ends, a few O lineman and maybe a running back on year one. It won’t be so easy.

[krindor]

Funny thing is that particular account is a BYU fan just trying to make Utah look bad

I don’t generally subscribe to the “blame everything bad in your fanbase on imposters”…but I’m pretty sure that one actually is. Created right after a discussion on CougarBoard of Utah as the SchrUTES and early comments were clearly over the top

That said, we have plenty of our own jerks with or without him

[UteFanatic]

That’s a BYU fan impersonating a Utah fan. One of many. It’s so pathetic.

[utefansince79]

People online, especially when they can hide behind a moniker, have the potential to be far more disrespectful and condescending than they are in real life.

While regretting the breakup of the PAC12 (and losing the great rivalries we developed, in particular with USC, Oregon, and others), I look forward to new rivalries not only in football, but in men’s basketball where we’re joining one of the strongest conferences top to bottom in the country, and in women’s hoops where there will be a lot of challenging teams. Hopefully our fanbase interaction with fans from our new conference opponents can be mostly civil and friendly, both on line, and also in the stands.