I'm really glad to hear that some Hokies had good experiences with Vols fans. We were in Bristol for 48 hours and only encountered TWO individual Vols fans that were friendly. On the whole, the UT fans I encountered were rude, obnoxious, mean and downright terrible fans. I've travelled to see the Hokies play a bunch of times... LSU in Baton Rouge, OSU in Columbus, Auburn, Michigan and FSU at the Sugar Bowl, Alabama in Atlanta at the CFA kickoff game plus many more. The UT fans in Bristol were far and away the worst fans of any that I've ever encountered.

Around town prior to the game we encountered at least 5 separate instances where UT fans cut in front of us... in line at stores, in traffic, and simply walking down the sidewalk. All different ages, too, not just younger folks. My mind was blown.

Prior to the game, UT fans mostly ignored us, which I much prefer to rudeness. One young couple sat next to us on the tram on the way in and they didn't want to talk with us at first, but we ended up having a great conversation. At the end, they seemed surprised and thanked us for the nice conversation and wished us luck.

Waiting in line to get into the stadium we had at least 20 UT fans cut in front of us at the gate and when we told them where the end of the line was, they cussed at us and told us where we could go.

During the game we were sitting near some UT students (I assume since they were young and fall-down drunk) and they were really obnoxious, especially when UT started pulling away. There was one young lady sitting on the aisle and had her legs crossed with her foot out in the aisle. People were having to walk around her leg to avoid tripping... just oblivious to the fact that she was in the way.

It sounds like the tailgate we went to was in the same campground you were, Bob. We were waiting to leave after the game, in our car in line, and THREE separate groups of UT fans walking by screamed at us through our closed car windows! One guy even put his hands on the window to scream inside the car. As we were walking back after the game, we had multiple UT fans get in our faces heckling us. ONE older gentleman wished us luck with the rest of the season; he was nice.

I'm glad this wasn't the widespread; maybe I just drew the short straw in the opposing fan experience drawing. I came to this message board specifically to see what other fans' experiences were, so thanks for sharing yours!