Being a frequent reader of Ivan Maisel on ESPN.com and seen a lot of words being thrown back and forth about this team's fans or that team's fans and how these boosters are obnoxious or those are, I think it is high time that somebody came up with a reasonable answer to solving this entire issue. And here's what I recommend in the way of solving this:
Not a single &#%@ing thing.
In the very first college game ever, between Princeton and Rutgers, the excitement was too much for one of the spectators and he suddenly blurted out, "You will meet no Christian end!" to the opposing team. With that, the storied history of taunting in college football began. I assume that many ladies at the game were scandalized by the utterance and all within hearing range fainted from shock. Or from corsets that were too tight, one or the other.
And since when did football fans become a bunch of whining wusses who couldn't take name calling? Was there a stick or a stone involved? Unless there were sticks or stones involved in the equation, I shall assume a lack of broken bones and, ergo, the names have not hurt anyone as of yet.
I was in the area of the Ohio State-Texas game and I saw Ohio State fans being obnoxious. And I saw -- admittedly very few -- Texas fans being obnoxious. And, in the past, I've also seen Michigan, Michigan State, Miami (both kinds), Florida State, Texas A&M, Purdue, Illinois, and fans from every other school act obnoxious (though, interestingly, I can't remember ever meeting an obnoxious Penn State fan). And the one thing they all had in common was that they were college students.
How many college students do you know who are always sober, polite, kind in all situations, and perfectly mannered? None I know and none that I ever knew. And adults wouldn't like any that are, since they would be non-conformists. Instead, these students are going through the same rite of passage that every college student goes through: they act obnoxious so that they can feel guilty about it later in life.
What do about it? Wait until the students grow up. Then, when they are older, they can sit down with each other and talk about the game kindly. Unfortunately, the current students will be replaced by students who will be, so far as I can figure, the same age as the students they are replacing and the older folks will wonder why these students are so obnoxious because they sure didn't act like that when they were that age.
Does it mean that fans should be obnoxious? No. Will all the apologies in the world every change anything? No. Is it a fact of life that we can all learn to deal with? Darn tootin'. Besides, if there weren't obnoxious fans, what would be the fun in seeing their team lose?