BearBoarBlarney said:
By the way, one of the X posts above mentions Auburn bringing a sizable contingent of fans to last year's game in Berkeley. I think these Auburn folks have no idea how small their contingent was compared to the traveling armies from Nebraska and Ohio State when those squads played in Berkeley. To be fair, Auburn had a decent turnout last year, but they are little league compared to the Cornhuskers and Buckeyes.
Weirdly this was the most annoying part of the interview for me. First, he has absolutely no idea how well Cal fans travel for OOC games. Our "marquee" OOC game last year (the only time he ever saw our fans in actions) was North Texas. So yeah, that one was never going to impress and him extrapolating from that is just silly.
By contrast, our visiting sections at Ohio State, Texas, Notre Dame, Ole Miss, UNC, etc. (and I was at all of those) have ALL drawn general admiration from opposing fans. Of course their comments have generally been in the vein of "I didn't know you godless commies even liked football"?, but the admiration has been real. What they all miss (always) is the size and wealth of the Cal alumni base. There's enough of us who can afford to travel cross country or who live on the east coast that even a small percentage of our alumni will impress.
By contrast, Sam thought the Auburn crowd was a "wow"? Child, please. It was fine. But literally not in the same universe as Ohio State or Nebraska. And honestly I don't think even equivalent to what we brought to Notre Dame or Texas just a few short years ago.
I know a ton of Cal folks who are going to this game. Cal had to charter an entire 2nd plane just for major donors. Something we've only done once or twice over the last few decades. I think our visiting section will impress. It always does. Just hope our team can as well.