Man, the skin's a little thin over here. Sticks and stones dude. What happened to looking down your nose at little brother? Pull up those knickers & root for the Big Sky Conference to finally break the strangle hold on the natty by the MVC for the sake of Pete. And root for MT kids.
I'm not thin skinned at all. I am a fan of the Montana Grizzlies! So that is the only team I care about winning the national championship. It really makes zero difference what other team or conference wins it. I love the game of football, I coach the game of football, I watch and study the game and attend Glazier clinics almost every year, sometimes twice a year. At my parent/player meeting every year I discuss heavily the importance of being a representative of our program and displaying excellence in sportsmanship to both players and parents along with respect to officials and other coaches. I have done the same for wrestling every year.
So I guess my question should be, when your 20+ thousand men,weman and children were chanting eat shit Grizzlies, is that directed at the Montana fan base, the Montana coaches, or those student athletes busting their ass for your entertainment and amusement, or all the above. I get the rivalry, and the hostility to a point, but I don't get how an entire fan base as a whole can tell another program to eat shit. Nobody will ever respect you no matter how dominant your program is. If you were to walk into any establishment in the state, or country for that matter, and start telling them to eat shit, what do you think their response will be? Respect? Admiration? Or a broken nose and a toss out the door?
Fan bases are extremely important for the future of football. There is a shortage of quality coaches and quality officials in this country, and less and less parents/youth choosing to participate for many reasons. Disrespectful fan bases will not help that trend. Again, congratulations on your teams success, but have some respect. Ya'll owe it to yourselves.