It was weird going to games freshman year. I’d loved BYU football since early grade school. I had played competitively and loved football in general (taking one look at Itula Mili—future NFL TE who played my position—reaffirmed that I was right to trade my cleats for books). I expected a lot of people like me at games. I was ready to scream and yell for my school and watch some great football.

Got to my first game, and the student section looks like they’re going straight to class afterwards. Mostly acted like it too. Quiet. Often sitting. Fashionable. Not rowdy at all. I yelled at an opposing player from 15 rows up once before a kickoff—he totally heard me and turned around. It was that quiet. This was vs a team who’d beaten us twice consecutively, and this was our revenge game supposedly.

To our crowd’s credit, I remember it being better by the Utah game, but we were still a hodge podge of apparel and actual interest in the game. Utah outcheered us until a Detmer to Drage 98-yard TD blew the roof off the place.

Things are much better now, but we are still coming from having been the absolute worst in terms of any top 25 program I can think of when it comes to having a unified crowd decked out in school colors