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Look how Little Gonzaga travels....For a school of 8,000 they do very well.....It is because the Whole State is behind them. People that technically are Huskie Fans at Washington, or cougar fans at Washington State, or even Duck Fans in Oregon, these fans jump on board for Gonzaga! Plus, it helps when the State of Washington has about 9 million in population, as compared to Utah's population that is around what 3 million? Aggie fans Travel well to Boise or Provo or Salt Lake, and we traveled well to Anaheim for a few years, but overall we are small fish in a large pool. Until we travel like Gonzaga fans, Arizona fans, North Carolina fans, Notre Dame fans we will remain a Wishing school and fans base when it comes to sports.

By the way, we traveled poor to San Diego in football at the Poinsettia Bowl against Northern Illinois!

The day after Christmas

Gonzaga fans have one sport to travel for. I wish money grew on trees and I had unlimited vacation time but I don't so I have to split my budget up and choose which events to travel to.

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I doubt even Texas would have traveled well to a lower-tier bowl game the day after Christmas. That said, I was at the game, and it was probably my best USU memory in the past 5-10 years. I can't make it to USU games often when I'm on the East Coast, so it's always a special day when I can.

Ya sorry putz but your wrong...i live in the greater seattle metropolitan area and i hear surprisingly very little about Gonzaga. UW fans could care less about Gonzaga. Wazzu a little more but that is based on geography. Zags fans do travel well but its a bit of an overstatement to say the whole state hops on board.

We don't even travel well to home games. Utah culture seems to want things for free.

This is BS. Before the big basketball drop off of the last few years we dominated travel in leagues like Gonzaga's, often gaining a home court advantage on the opponents court. For the Big West and WAC tourneys just a few years ago we usually had a larger contingent than the rest of the teams combined. We have produced the most highly attend Potato Bowls except for cases when Boise was playing on their home field. This fan base travels extremely well in general when teams are successful. The last couple of years with poor basketball and a disappointing season with an odd mid-week return to a bowl that felt like a bad consolation prize is what is coloring your perception.

Bottom line, if we were enjoying a run of success anywhere near Gonzaga's current run in basketball, we would blow them out of the water travel-wise. Give Gonzaga 5 years like we've had and they fall off the map IMO.

Incidentally, I agree with Stanford. We didn't travel well to the Poinsettia...but those who didn't make it missed by far the best bowl experience I've enjoyed.

I went. How could I not go to San Diego when I hit Boise two years straight.

If we were consistently winning NCAA Tournament games and MWC Championships our fans would travel. Just a few years ago in the WAC our fans traveled great for the tournaments.

It takes more than five years of relevance to create a culture in football, troutputz. This new stadium renovation and our revamped branding with Nike will be tremendously helpful going forward, but schools like BYU, Utah, and Oregon have been winning for much longer than we have.

As for basketball, can you even blame people for not traveling to see a .500 team? I remember during my freshman year (2010-2011) that students would figure out road trips to go to Boise, UNR, and even Fresno. A good team would invigorate our student body.

In summary, shut the hell up and settle the hell down.

We travel fine when we're dominating/competitive.

Much as I hate to say it, this thread brings to mind something LaVell Edwards once said about BYU fans at bowl games. I may not be quoting accurately, but it went something like: "BYU fans go to a bowl game with the Commandments and a ten dollar bill and don't break either one". There is far too much of that cultural attitude infecting USU fans. I can't begin to remember how many times on this forum fans have complained about even the slightest increase in ticket prices. I agree with some of the posters in this thread who have said that a winning team will result in better fan travel, but even so, the culture of, well, shall I say, frugality, will ever limit the numbers.

72AgGrad wrote:Much as I hate to say it, this thread brings to mind something LaVell Edwards once said about BYU fans at bowl games. I may not be quoting accurately, but it went something like: "BYU fans go to a bowl game with the Commandments and a ten dollar bill and don't break either one". There is far too much of that cultural attitude infecting USU fans. I can't begin to remember how many times on this forum fans have complained about even the slightest increase in ticket prices. I agree with some of the posters in this thread who have said that a winning team will result in better fan travel, but even so, the culture of, well, shall I say, frugality, will ever limit the numbers.

There are worse things than not paying to see a bunch of 20-year olds play throwball.

What is irrelevant is the thought that how well fans travel, or anything other than NCAA tourney wins can provide relevance.

Tourney wins deliver the most relevance in NCAA basketball, everything else is minor or short-lived by comparison.

AggieMan5 wrote:If we were consistently winning NCAA Tournament games and MWC Championships our fans would travel. Just a few years ago in the WAC our fans traveled great for the tournaments.

Yep. Pretty much the definition of fair weather fans. That's what's disappointing to me about the Aggie fanbase. When the team is winning fans come out and support. When the team is struggling they jump right off the bandwagon.

That's what many of us were trying to say here is that the other teams in the conference travel well even when their team is not winning. UNM, Fresno, and even Wyoming have a large contingent of die hard fans that travel and attend tournament games regardless. San Diego State is in the same boat as us with fair weather fans, but their weather has been much more fair than ours over the last several years, so they've been receiving the support. If (when) they have a drop-off their fan support will wane as well.

Sadly true. I basically recall even "dragging our ballz over broken glass"
To go twice to las cruces when the tourney was there. My nephews brought many gallons of aggie ice cream that we shared with the boys on newmags board at an ice cream social. We went wherever the tourney was. Anaheim. Reno. Lost crotches, Vegas and watched most of the other games as well
Aggies forever, treesap, gamefaqs, freakboy, my four sons. Other nephews. I rented a lot of rooms in las cruces
Oh. Some fine rental cars w handbrakes. One which was a great leaper car as I recall
Gamefaqs. Did I miss anyone? Explain the stadium car and Kevin Robinson
Reinactment. Gamefaqs played Robinson in the "catch " role
We found the finest dining out of town at CHOPES restaurant. Aggies forever took us on a tour of white sands
Usu had over a 1000 fans at that remote tourney. We will get that following back soon I feel

buckfever wrote:Sadly true. I basically recall even "dragging our ballz over broken glass"
To go twice to las cruces when the tourney was there. My nephews brought many gallons of aggie ice cream that we shared with the boys on newmags board at an ice cream social. We went wherever the tourney was. Anaheim. Reno. Lost crotches, Vegas and watched most of the other games as well
Aggies forever, treesap, gamefaqs, freakboy, my four sons. Other nephews. I rented a lot of rooms in las cruces
Oh. Some fine rental cars w handbrakes. One which was a great leaper car as I recall
Gamefaqs. Did I miss anyone? Explain the stadium car and Kevin Robinson
Reinactment. Gamefaqs played Robinson in the "catch " role
We found the finest dining out of town at CHOPES restaurant. Aggies forever took us on a tour of white sands
Usu had over a 1000 fans at that remote tourney. We will get that following back soon I feel

I still remember the posted photos of said leaping car.

Aggiesforever is butt hurt to this day that we never drove to Deming. Not sure why or what is there. He may have been intrigued by the name alone

buckfever wrote:Aggiesforever is butt hurt to this day that we never drove to Deming. Not sure why or what is there. He may have been intrigued by the name alone

I believe it's Frank's hometown. That alone makes it worth traveling to. What a mistake we made to never fit that into our trips.

buckfever wrote:Aggiesforever is butt hurt to this day that we never drove to Deming. Not sure why or what is there. He may have been intrigued by the name alone

Treesap and I talked about it frequently on that trip-- it seemed like every roadway we drove on, interstate or otherwise, there was an effort, subliminal or overt, to drive us all to Deming. I believe there was some satanic cult there (or gathering of BYU alumni association) waiting to take over our minds. I think one of us took this picture, or it was somehow permanently burned into our brains:



OR



All roads led to Deming. But we never made it. Instead, we left "Hanzel and Grettle" like trails of pistachio nut meats everywhere we went, as a way to lead ourselves back to the mecca of the desert southwest, that town of towns, that oasis in the middle of nowhere, Las Cruces, New Mexico. However, after we ate at Chopes, we had a near jet propulsion-like experience coming back into town. I think we broke the land speed record somehwere near Stahmann's Pecan Ranch.

Hah! I just found out why we were supposed to go to Deming! It was to see this:



Now we finally know, after all these years.

I wish I could hang out with you guys.

Indeed AF. To this day I'm not sure why you had such a need to get to Deming
You became the Hawaii coaches best friend as you explained and took his team on tour
Of aeronautical and space museum. You knew more than the curator
A little hamlet close to town had thousands of ol vintage vehicles. All rust
Free. Dr freakboy was intrigued with the old VW greatful dead Woodstock busses. He was sorely tempted

This thread reminded me that I actually have been to Deming. I stopped there for gas once on a cross-country road trip. It was at night, so I couldn't see much, and all I did was quickly pull off to a truck stop. But had I had known the significance of Deming, I would have taken a few pictures for this board.

Deming . . . where hours of your life go to die.

Not true. I'm ready to go right now I think I paid for most airfares. Let's rent a bus and go to Deming
Nutmeats by the gallon. We hit CHOPES I'll buy. Who's in?