Utah Football Brand & Identity

[Yergensen]

Fearful and insecure haters want to make it seem like Utah Football isn’t a national brand, that it is an unknown outside the state or conference.

Here are some of the Utah Football Brand characteristics from national, not local, media:

“Death, Taxes, Utah Football” – Joel Klatt

“The Big 12 is absolutely not ready for the ball of razor blades and napalm that is the Utah football program.” – Brett Kollmann

“Biker gang…whose QB looks and acts like the gang leader…garish display of badassery…like a mob goon…” – David Jones referring to Utah’s 2022 wins over USC and prepping Penn State fans for the Rose Bowl

“Utah is a biker gang.” – Yogi Roth

Consistently tough, consistently good. Our decades long identity sparked by Mac, ignited by Urban and refined by Whitt is who we have become to be known not only to our conference mates, but college football. Maybe Ute Nation should be changed to Biker Gang.

In any case, proud of our brand and identity. The emergence and growth of this program over the past 30 years has been a ride.

Let’s go take that next step!

[Utah]

We won 8 games last year, don’t recruit in the teens, didn’t have a monster recruiting class and are still ranked #12/13.

We are one of the most ranked teams in the CFP.

We absolutely have a brand and it’s this: “We are gonna kick your ass. But it will be fun. But we are still gonna kick it or go down trying.”

It’s beautiful.

[ProudUte]

we have been to four NY6 bowls and won two.

Only seven teams have been in the CFP t=ranking more than the Utes

We played in 4 of the last 6 Pac 12 conference championships.

Whitt is the second longest tenured head coach.

We have been on GameDay 5-6 times.

We had 50K show up at the Rose Bowl and Fiesta Bowl.

19k fans showed up in Gainsville two years ago This is or than any other team outside of FSU.

We have at leat ten players starting in the NFL right now.

Yes, Utah football is a strong brand.

[NashvilleUte]

We’ve made impressive strides in our brand/identity among college football analysts and other coaches across the country. The rankings consistency proves that and builds upon that. Besides the analyst quotes above, I’m regularly reading quotes from various coaches across the nation who appreciate Whitt’s coaching and out style of football and are trying to emulate it.

However the aspect where we still need to grow and improve our brand is among national football FANS. I’m talking primarily outside the western Pac12 states. As someone who lives in the east, our name recognition is improving with those I talk with, but the familiarity is still very lacking. Part of it is that I live in the SEC footprint where folks don’t think outside the SEC/Big10 much at all. I’m pretty sure part of it is due to our late after dark games. The PAC12 as a whole outside of USC and Oregon seemed to struggle with recognition and i chalk part of it up to terrible game times for this half of the country. I get that there are those in the west who love and hate the later games, but they’re almost prohibitively late for anyone other than major fans in the east. I’ll watch, but I groan every time I see a super late one because I know I’ll be super tired the next day.

Anyway, we’re doing great as a brand, but we shouldn’t get too comfortable. Consistently playing in big games and getting some big wins in the major bowl games will help with fan sentiment. We’re just about there!

[Author]

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