Well Volnation the new season is upon us. Just like last year I will be visiting the message boards of the team we are playing in the upcoming game and reporting back what is being said every week. Most have seen the Utah State boards in this long offseason, but here's a summary of what the Aggie faithful are saying regarding the first game of 2014:
-For the most part, there's a pretty even mix of fan attitudes towards Tennessee from what I've seen. Some of the fans are looking at this game through realistic glasses, a lot of "we may not win but it will be close" kind of talk. Others have somehow convinced themselves that Tennessee is the absolute bottom of the barrel, scum scraping epitome of a team with no talent in college football. Utah State should "roll right over UT."
-Like most other fans of lesser teams from lesser conferences this is all about number of wins and bowl games to them. They've won more games recently, been to more bowl games, etc etc. strength of schedule is irrelevant.
-They are pretty confident Klyer Fackrell will be a wrecking ball in this game. They speak of him as though we've never seen a linebacker of his quality.
-Many of them rank Tennessee as the 3rd or 4th toughest game of their season. There is a thread devoted to it and only a few have us as their toughest game. Most think Boise and BYU will be tougher games.
-One poster started a thread saying we are easily the 5th toughest game on their schedule. He said USU will roll right over us because we will have the "first game jitters." ......that's really what he said.
-They expect Keeton to absolutely light us up in his first game back after an ACL tear.
-Essentially they respect our conference but not us. They believe our win over SC from last year to be a fluke and feel that because we lose so much in the SEC we would likely lose anywhere.
-Ironically, they have a thread making fun of us for "bragging about losing to good teams" yet their main argument for why they can win is because they "played well against Auburn, Wisconsin, and USC" over the last few years. They lost all 3 of those games.
-They are putting a lot of faith in former UT DB Daniel Gray because he's "been around our program and the SEC." It's worth noting that Gray couldn't manage to get significant playing time for the 2012 defense, statistically the worst defense in UT history.
-They are replacing lines just like we are, but apparently they are at an advantage because "the starters from last year's USU lines only started because they were seniors, the linemen behind them were way more talented." Yes, this is an actual quote from one of their boards, and none of his fellow fans disputed his logic.
-General score predictions are split, mostly in agreement that the game will be decided by 4-7 points.
-Again, much praise for Auburn, USC, Wisconsin as justification for why they are going to win. A quote from their board "Auburn, Whisky, and USC all went on to bowl games and were coming off of big bowl games the season before playing us. UT hasn't had a bowl eligible team for 4 seasons and has not won a bowl since 2008. I'm predicting an Aggie win by 6." The bolded is incorrect.
- This is an actual quote....
........it would be a miracle for us to score 20..... Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if our passing game alone scores 20.
-Kind of embarrassing: there was a UT troll on their board named NatureBoy who was posing as a Utah State fan. He got exposed, tried to hold his ground with promises that he was a long time Aggies fan, then eventually slipped up with a "we play in the SEC" kind of comment. He still posts there as an admitted UT fan, but naturally doesn't get much respect.
-Honestly I'm probably making their fan base sound worse than it is. There are some reasonable posters there. A good portion of them just want to see a decent game. They, like us, just really want a post-season for their team. They will be proud of just playing a close game against us.
