[ColoradoTree]

I don't know, CT, how old your friends are, but I have observed that the tendency to woof decreases inversely to the age of the individual.  Not a perfect correlation, but an observable trend in my experience. 

I'm in my mid-30's, and with the exception of a couple clients (one in his early 40's, one in his mid-50's), that's the same age as the Iowa fans I've been talking to.  It may just be an isolated incident, but it's actually my clients rather than my friends that have been woofing the hardest. 

My wife has been engaging in some mild trash talk, but in more of a generalized "Iowa is awesome" manner, since she doesn't follow the team too closely, despite loving her Hawkeyes.  That stuff is all well and good; it's the trash talking disguised as "analysis" that pushes my buttons. 

And CornFed, I'm with you on fan trash talking.  I don't mind it when Richard Sherman does it and then backs it up, but I don't know that I've ever said to an opposing fan, "We're gonna kick your *$$!"  Probably because I'm a worrier and I've never even thought that.  Basically, I approach every Stanford game in a near panic and I prepare for the worst, so it baffles me how fans could be so confident in their team winning that they simply can't comprehend how their team could lose.  I mean, before the UCLA game, I had completely talked myself into Perkins running all over our thin DL and Rosen getting his revenge on the school that didn't offer him.  Yet we did just fine.  I was almost beside myself the week before the title game versus SC because I was convinced that this was finally the time when all of that talent would click into place and they'd look like the best team in the country.  Yet we did just fine, despite me being a nervous wreck until very late in the fourth quarter.  Still, the approach remains the same.  I analyze the other team, imagine how they'd beat us, and then worry, while rooting like heck for our boys. 

[ColoradoTree]

I don't know, CT, how old your friends are, but I have observed that the tendency to woof decreases inversely to the age of the individual.  Not a perfect correlation, but an observable trend in my experience. 

I'm in my mid-30's, and with the exception of a couple clients (one in his early 40's, one in his mid-50's), that's the same age as the Iowa fans I've been talking to.  It may just be an isolated incident, but it's actually my clients rather than my friends that have been woofing the hardest. 

My wife has been engaging in some mild trash talk, but in more of a generalized "Iowa is awesome" manner, since she doesn't follow the team too closely, despite loving her Hawkeyes.  That stuff is all well and good; it's the trash talking disguised as "analysis" that pushes my buttons. 

And CornFed, I'm with you on fan trash talking.  I don't mind it when Richard Sherman does it and then backs it up, but I don't know that I've ever said to an opposing fan, "We're gonna kick your *$$!"  Probably because I'm a worrier and I've never even thought that.  Basically, I approach every Stanford game in a near panic and I prepare for the worst, so it baffles me how fans could be so confident in their team winning that they simply can't comprehend how their team could lose.  I mean, before the UCLA game, I had completely talked myself into Perkins running all over our thin DL and Rosen getting his revenge on the school that didn't offer him.  Yet we did just fine.  I was almost beside myself the week before the title game versus SC because I was convinced that this was finally the time when all of that talent would click into place and they'd look like the best team in the country.  Yet we did just fine, despite me being a nervous wreck until very late in the fourth quarter.  Still, the approach remains the same.  I analyze the other team, imagine how they'd beat us, and then worry, while rooting like heck for our boys.