Big Ten fans- a ranking

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Handsome Pete

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I know one fan base's estimation of whether opposing fans are decent or complete jerks is somewhat (even largely) dependent on the level of rivalry. However, I have cobbled together anecdotal accounts from different friends/fans of what they think of other Big Ten fan bases. Here is my sweet ranking from #1 (classiest) to #10 (biggest lowlifes).

#1 Penn State (classiest)
#2 Northwestern
#3 Indiana
#4 Minnesota
#5 Michigan State
#6 Purdue
#7 Illinois
#8 Michigan
#9 Ohio State
#10 Wisconsin
#11 Iowa (biggest lowlifes)

EDIT: LOL, I forgot Indiana! I also swapped OSU/Wisconsin and Illinois/Michigan because of what I considered good points by the commenters.
 

Besides Iowa, no way in hell are there bigger lowlife fans than Wisc.

OSU fans are full of themselves, but they tend to pee in urinals, not in the isles or on themselves.

I'd put Michigan fans below Illinois fans. Illinois fans are lame, but harmless. Michigan fans are d-bags.

The criteria is a tough one to work with when talking about fan bases like Northwestern. All 40 of them are nice, but there are only 40 of them.

Good post topic..
 

Handsome Pete said:
I know one fan base's estimation of whether opposing fans are decent or complete jerks is somewhat (even largely) dependent on the level of rivalry. However, I have cobbled together anecdotal accounts from different friends/fans of what they think of other Big Ten fan bases. Here is my sweet ranking from #1 (classiest) to #10 (biggest lowlifes).

#1 Penn State (classiest)
#2 Northwestern
#3 Minnesota
#4 Michigan State
#5 Purdue
#6 Michigan
#7 Illinois
#8 Wisconsin
#9 Ohio State
#10 Iowa (biggest lowlifes)
Click to expand...

Where is Indiana?
 

well i dont know how credible this is considering every big ten team isnt even included, but i definitely agree with the worst and best
 

my rank

#1 Penn State
#2 northwestern
#3 through #6 Purdue, Michigan State, Illinois, Indiana. Michigan almost at #7 instead of us.
#7 Minnesota
#8 Wisconsin
#9 Michigan
#10 Iowa
#11 Theee Ohio State

I have been to each venue a minimum of 3 times, some 4 or 5 times. Our fans are not the best when it comes to language and hospitality. Good fans shut up and ignore the visitors. It is worth saying that Ohio State has the biggest jerks in the Big Ten. I have been there 4 times and have seen the worst each time. Sad to say this but they rank below Wisky and Iowa as far as the most disliked squad for me.
 


I've been to all the stadiums as well, I would rank my experiences with fans as:

1. Penn State
2. Northwestern
3. Purdue
4. Michigan
5. Indiana
6. Iowa
7. Michigan State
8. Illinois
9. Wisconsin
10. the Ohio State

Of course I would put MN as number one but I'm a gopher fan. I don't know how an away fan would feel at the Bank.
 

I think you also have to account for the home vs away factor. For example: Based on my own experience, I would rank Iowa fans at Kinnick differently than the fans that come up here. The Iowa fans at Kinnick aren't bad at all. The Iowa fans that come up here are the worst I have ever seen.
 


Considering my mother and father, sitting in their green & white, were welcomed to The Bank with unprovoked F-bombs by a few complete drunken idiots in Section 117, approximately rows 3-5 (as were 3 other MSU fans sitting quietly in our row), then subjected to constant taunting that forced us to sit somewhere else, I know my dad would have Minnesota somewhere near the bottom. He put Gopher fans in the same (bad) company as Ohio State & Wisconsin fans, though he admitted Wisconsin fans have been much better the last couple visits to Camp Randall.

He's been to all the stadiums, I haven't. He says Indiana, Iowa, Michigan and Purdue have always been good experiences, the home fans treat you right. He doesn't like Michigan (naturally), but he said the two places they can always count on being treated with respect and class are Michigan and Notre Dame. I was ashamed to be wearing maroon & gold last Saturday, quite frankly. I told the dufus he should be really proud of himself, swearing at and taunting a pair of retired folks in their early 70s.

And these idiots weren't students, either. They were probably in their 20's or early 30s. Our seats are right across the aisle from the students, and the students were great. They gave my folks no trouble whatsoever.
 



jesus guys get over the whole "this teams' fan base is SO classless" garbage. Ive talked to many fans of other schools, and read many posts on other teams' message boards relating glowing reviews of how great they were treated at the pregame tailgate and at the game at Camp Randall. Are there stupid drunk a-holes who are incredibly classless at Wisconsin? Absolutely. Are there stupid drunk a-holes who are incredibly classless at Minnesota? Absolutely. The same goes on all over the Big ten. Im sure many of you have had some unpleasant experience at a game at CR. If you think Minnesota fans are just better, classier people, so be it.

Here's a total shocker as well: fans from Rival A will normally say Rival B's fan's are the WORST, especially if Rival A's team has been taken to the woodshed fairly often in the recent past. I'm sorry most of you think Wisconsin's fans are so terribly classless. I wish you all could run in to the mass majority of good and decent badger fans who just enjoy having a brat, a beer, cheering for their squad, and talking football with opposing teams fans.
 

I just got around to reading SelectionSundays post. He (apologies if female, im just playing the odds here) mentioned that two places his family member mentioned always treats people with respect are ND and Michigan. I'll give you ND, my brother went to school there so I have been to dozens of ND games (not wearing opposing teams' colors) and its a pretty old, relaxed, historical setting that gets along well with most everyone. When Michigan was mentioned I almost laughed diet coke out my nose. I've never personally been, but I have MANY ND friends who refuse to go to a game again in Ann Arbor because of how 'classless' Michigan's fans treated them. this kind of leads me to my original point, there are a-holes at every big ten school, and the order of classless fans is vastly overrated and largely in the eye of the beholder. Ok, my rant is over.
 

taunting your parents?

If that ever happens again, get the usher to call the police over and bring them right to the taunter. They will get ejected when the police ask around about their behavior. People will back you up. If they don't get jerked, they will shut up.
 

gopherjay said:
If that ever happens again, get the usher to call the police over and bring them right to the taunter. They will get ejected when the police ask around about their behavior. People will back you up. If they don't get jerked, they will shut up.
Click to expand...

Actually saw a few people get tossed from the game. Not sure what the story was, but they were gopher fans. When they were being escorted out by security, they all had a look of disbelief as if they didn't know they could get kicked out.
 



Thanks GopherJay, I appreciate it.

We did that, but they did not come down to our area and do anything. My dad was not going to press the issue. The security guard (not the young ones in the yellow, they're too young to do anything about it, nor should they have to) told us they were aware of problems in that area from prior games, and that he would note it and report it. Bottom line is they chose not to address the idiots in question. When the taunting continued, we just decided to move to an open area at the top of the student section. And that still wasn't enough for 2 of the guys. As they walked by us on their way to the concourse, they showered us with a few more porfanities while mocking the Michigan economy at the same time (little did they know that I live in Minnesota & my folks live in Illinois, but that's beside the point).

My first experience at The Bank (Cal) was a great one. The second one. ... not so much. My parents already said next time they'll just get their tickets through MSU instead of using my brother & I's tickets.
 

1-10. Ten way tie, depending on the week.
11. Our inbred southern neighbors.
 

Man I would really like to meet some of these classy Penn State fans you guys speak of. In my experience they are immature and completely full of themselves when it comes to their football team and their school. And yes, I know a ton of PSU fans.
 

It's too late to help Selection Sunday, but there's a number to send a text message in the event you're encountering obnoxious or difficult fans: 612-875-4877. There have been announcements about this service before the games ... started with the homecoming game. There's also a Daily article here

countdownclub.jpg
 

Rick Mons said:
It's too late to help Selection Sunday, but there's a number to send a text message in the event you're encountering obnoxious or difficult fans: 612-875-4877. There have been announcements about this service before the games ... started with the homecoming game. There's also a Daily article here

countdownclub.jpg
Click to expand...

Genius that there is a number to text to deal with obnoxious fans. Who wants to get up, crawl through people, find an usher and lead them down? You'll miss a lot of the game. Good call on the text number.
 

The security guard in the student section was throwing out people who were throwing out the Goldy Gopher masks.
 

Having worked security at the Gopher Games the reason they were thrown out for throwing the Gopher Masks is that there is a Zero Tolerance penalty for people caught throwing items toward the field.

I would inform security. There is no excuse for being as abnoxious as they were and most are cowards that do. I have gone up to many and 90% of the time the threat of being kicked out and the calm response of "what would your grandmother think about how your acting right now?" is enough to embarrass them into realing their stupidity.
 

". ... the calm response of "what would your grandmother think about how your acting right now?" is enough to embarrass them into realing their stupidity."

Funny you should mention that. The exact words I used with the guy were, "Your parents must be really proud of you, swearing at and taunting two elderly people."

For the most part that shut him up for awhile.
 

Re: swearing at your mom. You should have punched that f'er right in the face.
 

MNBadgerGuy said:
jesus guys get over the whole "this teams' fan base is SO classless" garbage. Ive talked to many fans of other schools, and read many posts on other teams' message boards relating glowing reviews of how great they were treated at the pregame tailgate and at the game at Camp Randall. Are there stupid drunk a-holes who are incredibly classless at Wisconsin? Absolutely. Are there stupid drunk a-holes who are incredibly classless at Minnesota? Absolutely. The same goes on all over the Big ten. Im sure many of you have had some unpleasant experience at a game at CR. If you think Minnesota fans are just better, classier people, so be it.

Here's a total shocker as well: fans from Rival A will normally say Rival B's fan's are the WORST, especially if Rival A's team has been taken to the woodshed fairly often in the recent past. I'm sorry most of you think Wisconsin's fans are so terribly classless. I wish you all could run in to the mass majority of good and decent badger fans who just enjoy having a brat, a beer, cheering for their squad, and talking football with opposing teams fans.
Click to expand...

You are absolutely right. Every fan base has them. I've been to all the Big 10 stadiums and some of the biggest A-holes I have ever come across were 5-6 guys in Iowa City...who were rooting for the Gophers. At the tailgate lot, they were swearing at families, throwing empty beer cans at people (it was an 11 a.m. start) and leaving their garbage everywhere. I was embarrassed to be wearing maroon and gold that day.
 

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