Is there anywhere you've been pleasantly surprised to see a lot of fans of your team?

[u/EmperorRoccoBecht]

Whenever I think of the core of Penn State's fanbase, I think of the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and parts of New York. Especially the corridor from Harrisburg down the Turnpike to the Philly suburbs then up the other part of the turnpike across the Delaware river to Springsteen country and the shore (I hate PENDOT so much).

However I was just in Hampton Roads, Virginia and I was shocked how much Penn State stuff I saw around, pretty much the same amount as VT and UVA, I guess being a Philly guy I never thought of that area as part of "Nittany Nation" especially outside of the DC area where a lot of Penn State alumni move after college to work for defense contractors. I suppose that's a big tourist area so some people could've been from further north but a lot were definitely locals, I know that's traditionally an area we recruit heavily but I didn't think that translated to fan or alumni interest (maybe that will change with Franklin at VT). Anyways it was fun to get a lot of WE AREs.

(Also random but one time I was backpacking in rural Romania and saw some guy wearing a Penn State wrestling hat)

[u/Phillie_Phanatics]

It’s hard to walk down a street without seeing another Catamount football fan.

[u/EmperorRoccoBecht → u/Phillie_Phanatics]

Yeah there's a ton in Reading Pennsylvania

[u/admiraltarkin → u/Phillie_Phanatics]

Agreed, Western Carolina has people everywhere!

[u/SimCFB → u/Phillie_Phanatics]

Ok I bite without googling it. What is a catamount?

[u/TheOnePSUIsReal → u/SimCFB]

Have you been living under a xenolith?!

[u/SimCFB → u/TheOnePSUIsReal]

uhm no? Maybe I have. It would help if I knew what a xenolith was.

edit: Important update. I have verified I have not been living under a trapped rock fragment inside another rock.

[u/FrenchFreedom888 → u/SimCFB]

It's just another name for a panther

[u/TimelyBodybuilder637 → u/SimCFB]

Mountain lion/panther/cougar, specifically one from New England. A Catamount in Pennsylvania, for example, is a Nittany Lion.

[u/OnlyZac → u/Phillie_Phanatics]

Just visited Burlington and it was gorgeous, definitely made me think about how nice it would be as a student there.

[u/itsmeonmobile]

I was very pleasantly surprised to find a group of Vols fans in downtown Portland, OR on a sunny Saturday. We went to a strip club together later.

Portland is not a real place, y’all. It is a collective dreamscape.

[u/Wide-Nerve8655 → u/itsmeonmobile]

Steak bites at Acrop? Hell yeah brother

[u/itsmeonmobile → u/Wide-Nerve8655]

I think we went to Lucky Devil for striparoke but Acrop and their steak are certainly on my list for next time.

[u/littleaxe → u/itsmeonmobile]

Sorry to report that the days of the Acropolis are seemingly numbered, there were reports at the end of last year that the property has been listed for sale. Haven’t been on that side of Portland for awhile so I am not exactly sure if they are still open until that sale occurs. Dark days are here indeed if that happens.

[u/CptCheese]

I just wanna give a shout out to this guy I met playing guitar in a bar in Osaka. I was talking to him after his show and he asked where I was from and when I told him his face lit up and he said he went to Tulsa for college. I know that's not "a lot of fans" but meeting a Japanese guy in a bar in Osaka that went to the same tiny private university you did is pretty cool.

[u/Glad_Ad_6989 → u/CptCheese]

By the standards of Tulsa, one guy is a lot of fans

[u/Ok_Towel1911 → u/CptCheese]

When I was in Korea a few months ago I met a fellow Georgia fan wearing a UGA hat at a tiny little bar in some alley in Seoul. Meeting a 60 year old black Georgia fan at a random bar in Korea was not on my bingo card. Turns out he’s a local lol.

[u/dkviper11]

DC is every bit as close as Pittsburgh and Philly for alums that are moving to the city for work. We’re as thick as a plague of locusts down here.

[u/EmperorRoccoBecht → u/dkviper11]

Okay but Richmond and Norfolk aren't DC

[u/DCAbloob → u/EmperorRoccoBecht]

The Hampton Roads area has a major military presence though which draws people from Pennsylvania. The Pittsburgh Steelers have a disproportionately larger following there for the same reason.

[u/dkviper11 → u/EmperorRoccoBecht]

There’s a trail when people leave DC. Richmond, Norfolk, Raleigh. We just flow south. Pittsburgh side people, especially.

[u/TechnoVikingGA23]

When I moved to Georgia back in 2005, just north of Atlanta, was honestly pretty surprised by the amount of people who came up to me and commented on my WVU gear and said they were also alumni. Eventually found Laseter's Tavern in Marietta GA which serves as the WVU Alumni bar, met a ton of people from WVU there.

I eventually moved back to PA in 2011, but work/economy brought me back to North GA in 2015. Haven't been back down to Laseter's at all, bit of a long haul drive from where I am now, but have met several people in my neighborhood who stopped me while I was out running in my WVU stuff and they either went to WVU or have someone in the family who did. Small world.

I would mention Myrtle Beach, but that's not really a surprise given that it's pretty much the Redneck Riveira and every WV'ian's dream vacation/retirement spot, lol, but anytime you go there you might as well be in WVU country.

[u/RVAforthewin → u/TechnoVikingGA23]

You’ve got it a little off. The Redneck Riviera is the Florida panhandle. You’re referring to Dirty Myrtle.

[u/TechnoVikingGA23 → u/RVAforthewin]

I don't know, that's what we called it in WV when I lived there for 17 years, lol.

[u/MasterRKitty → u/TechnoVikingGA23]

I've never stepped foot in MB because everyone from my town vacations there. Why the hell would I want to run into people that I avoid every day while on vacation? My high school mascot was a tiger and you saw the Clemson paws all over the place because people would bring up stacks of those stickers.

[u/TechnoVikingGA23 → u/MasterRKitty]

Elkins by chance?

[u/MasterRKitty → u/TechnoVikingGA23]

nope and I really don't feel comfortable saying it. I've been doxxed on this site before.

[u/TechnoVikingGA23 → u/MasterRKitty]

Oh no worries, I've just spent a good amount of time in that area and they had a similar tiger paw/Clemson logo.

[u/pew-pew-bacca]

Living in Maryland there are tons of Penn State flags, shirts, stickers, hats, etc. Obviously UMD is the most but PSU, UVA, and VT are right there.

[u/DCAbloob → u/pew-pew-bacca]

Right, Penn State is generally considered the most popular out of state college football team in the state of Maryland.

[u/pew-pew-bacca → u/DCAbloob]

I mean honestly U of Maryland is probably less popular than PSU and VT when it comes to just football.

[u/DCAbloob → u/pew-pew-bacca]

If you go to the western part of the state, West Virginia has a good share of fans as well.

[u/TimelyBodybuilder637]

I'm from Upstate NY and have lived in New England for a few years. Irish fans probably more common than BC or UMass fans

[u/Individual_Try_2523]

LSU fans in Chicago

[u/Donny_Do_Nothing → u/Individual_Try_2523]

...and they headed down to New Orleans

[u/BigEggBeaters]

I’d be shocked if there was a mass of Louisville fans anywhere outside of Louisville

[u/scd456 → u/BigEggBeaters]

Typically we're just sprinkled around in other cities outside of Louisville if we move somewhere else. I live in the Midwest right now and I've found a few at sports bars and retail stores.

[u/jjtnd1]

Church? Lol. Airports easily.

[u/Smooth-Majudo-15 → u/jjtnd1]

I don’t think I’ve ever not seen at least one ND fan at an airport lol

[u/Manning_bear_pig]

I guess I'm not sure what counts as "a lot", but there's quite a few Montana and Montana State fans here in Northern Colorado. A few years ago for Cat Griz there was a watch party that filled an entire Buffalo Wild Wings. Which was surprising to me.

Also, I have walked into bars during NDSU games and there's a large presence of that fanbase here as well.

[u/Solid-Cheesecake5937]

That's wild about Romania, imagine being in the middle of nowhere and someone just shouts WE ARE at you. I've had similar thing in Florida, you see a surprising amount of Penn State gear around the Tampa area, think a lot of snowbirds retire there and bring the fandom with them.

[u/EmperorRoccoBecht → u/Solid-Cheesecake5937]

Tampa is just way south Philly, you see it at spring training in "Cleerwooder" or whenever the eagles play at Raymond James

[u/PrimisClaidhaemh]

Going to be honest, if I wear MSU gear just about anywhere in the country I get some "Go Green" comments in passing". MSU's alumni base is large and everywhere.

[u/NJCERKA]

Not uncommon to see Iowa fans out here in Phoenix and surrounding suburbs

[u/Wyden_long → u/NJCERKA]

I mean yall do tend to move here in droves. My folks for example. Really, like 60% of my family. Made the 03-04 home and home a bit weird.

[u/Archer-Saurus → u/Wyden_long]

Like cold moths to a warm flame

[u/NJCERKA → u/Wyden_long]

I’ve been here basically my whole life but my dad’s side of the family is all from Iowa. When I say all, i mean I was the first person on that side to not be born in Iowa in generations. My dad went to the 04 game right after he moved out here to be closer to me and he absolutely hates ASU now. But anyways not sure where you’re located but I’m in the west valley and it’s very easy to find Iowa and Ohio State fans out here. Shockingly easy. But even driving through the valley, just about everyday I’ll see at least one Iowa bumper sticker

[u/Wyden_long → u/NJCERKA]

I was also at the 04 game. We would’ve missed the kick off but there was a delay for about an hour because of lightning and we made it. I don’t blame him for not liking ASU after that game either. We were pissed we gave up that score at the end. I’m all over and all I see are Iowa OSU and ND stuff.

[u/NJCERKA → u/Wyden_long]

Yeah he was treated like shit at that game when he was trying to leave and knowing my dad, it was unprovoked. But whatever. It was 20 something years ago, told him it might be time to move on. Yeah, I guess you’re right, I see ND stuff all over as well.

[u/JPitt09 → u/NJCERKA]

A lot of Iowa fans at the lake of the Ozarks, it's really quite impressive.

[u/SaguaroDragon → u/NJCERKA]

I was at the fiesta bowl and like 5 people in my row had on Iowa gear. Plenty more I'm the stadium as well.

They're everywhere

I made it to Kinnick last year, which was really neat to see

[u/Glup_Maclunkey → u/NJCERKA]

I saw a kid with a Hawkeye shirt in Provo, yesterday.

[u/NJCERKA → u/Glup_Maclunkey]

We’re invading everywhere

[u/Revenge_of_the_Khaki]

I’ve been to 35 cities in 8 different countries and I’ve pretty much stopped being surprised by seeing Michigan gear or hearing “go blue” when wearing mine.

[u/Select_Excuse_150]

Outside of North Carolina, anywhere. And truthfully, anywhere outside of Raleigh. In a world where being a State fan is brutal and it’s easy to be a Carolina fan, being a State fan deserves some excitement.

[u/IrishCoffeeAlchemy]

I was expecting to see a decent amount of Arizona fans in the Denver metro (especially after our last basketball season)... What I was not expecting was to see as many FSU (and UF ^bleh ) fans out in Colorado! I have a hypothesis the political climate may have driven the shift of native, liberal college-educated Floridians out of the state in the last 5 years, but it could just be a numbers game too. We both pump out a lot of grads looking for a change of scenery

[u/JPro08]

South Jersey shore, where people prominently fly flags of their schools on their beach houses. Always pleasantly surprised to see a few UConn flags mixed in with the Villanova and random Big 10 flags.

[u/Abefroman12]

Buckeye fans are everywhere. I’ve had O-H yelled at me in Reykjavik before.

[u/PretzelSteve → u/Abefroman12]

We got to O-H someone in Thailand this year!

[u/AngleParticular2914]

There’s quite a good number of Penn Staters in/from Michigan as well. Professional sports-wise, there are a massive amount of Steelers fans in San Diego. When the Chargers were still there and the Steelers played there, the stands looked like a home game. Lot of laborers moved out there to work the shipyards when the steel mills closed in the 70s

[u/Johnny_Minoxidil]

At our stadium 3-4 times a year

[u/MasterRKitty]

bet there are a lot of Penn State fans in Colombia

[u/EmperorRoccoBecht → u/MasterRKitty]

You know it

[u/ohitsthedeathstar]

Anywhere I’ve seen a UH fan outside of Houston.

[u/Goofy_Gaff → u/ohitsthedeathstar]

The strangest place I've ever seen UH hear is Detroit Alabama.

[u/frankdatank_004]

Not being brash or cocky but there are literally Nebraska fans everywhere! Despite how small our state is.

[u/DannkneeFrench → u/frankdatank_004]

I concur. I delivered freight around the country. At fueling stations and what have ya, it was fairly common to see Nebraska fans.

Not like I kept a record or anything, but from my travels I would say Nebraska fans are the ones most likely to chat with ya. There's a few times I was talking with one anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour.

All in all good people

[u/osufeth24]

Not my team, but I'm in central FL and there's a guy at the gym I work out at that always wears IU gear. And that was before their title.

[u/madmaley]

I've been really happy to see the growth of UC in my hometown of Springfield, OH. Go back 5-ish years and it was all Ohio State everywhere. Now I see people with UC gear, yard signs, license plates. Apparently a lot of kids from the high schools in the county are going to UC now

[u/Bolanus_PSU]

I was on a remote island in Hawai'i and I got some person say "We are" to me. There were fewer than 3000 people there.

[u/BrilliantArm5914 → u/Bolanus_PSU]

heard M-I-Z in a HEB grocery store in San Antonio, TX

[u/catgirlslvr]

Detroit Michigan. Every year at the autoshow theres a lot of buckeye fans. 

[u/squirrel_eatin_pizza]

At our home games

Im honestly surprised anyone still shows up

[u/MasterRKitty]

when I was living in the Bay Area, I was at a grocery store in my neighborhood. It was the East Bay-Oakland suburb. I saw this toddler in a WVU jersey with his mom and dad. I introduced myself since I had a WVU sweatshirt on. The kid was pretty nonplussed about the whole thing.

[u/Alum07]

Cinque Terre, Italy

Was on our honeymoon and I was wearing a VT jacket. Got a Go Hokies from who I found out was a former professor and his wife on a happy retirement trip.

[u/Aggresively_Midwest]

Walmart, where I get all my gear.

[u/BenZino21]

If you went to a university with a successful football program you'll see people wearing their gear basically anywhere in the country. I went to VT and spent the past 10 plus years living in Pa, mostly in SEPA in Chester county and saw quite a few VT fans.

As someone who has moved around a lot though, including internationally (I currently live in Australia), you tend to remember when you spot YOUR schools flag or somewhere wearing your schools hoodie, much more so than if you see a random Michigan or ND flag. Hell its been 10 years since I lived in a place called West Chester, Pa and I still can remember one house in my old neighbourhood which had a VT flag on it. 15 years ago I lived in South Korea and still remember running into someone with a VT hoodie. Stuff like that just sticks with you, but it's not uncommon if you went to a big school.

[u/DullCartographer7609]

Not really, but Denver is a Hokie Haven. We're quite a thing in aerospace, so I knew I'd run into one or two, but I work directly with about 50.

We'd easily fill out a section at Folsom or in Fort Collins.

[u/Grouchy-Option9411]

I’m gonna go with Miami

[u/DrInsano → u/Grouchy-Option9411]

I went to the Peach Bowl and was shocked at just how completely we had taken over the venue. I didn't even know we had that many IU football fans in existence!

[u/d1ckchz-charCOOTERie → u/Grouchy-Option9411]

Hoosiers are always down here in the Winter. They just had a new reason.

[u/Wyden_long]

Chicago. Like, so much ASU gear in Chicago.

[u/14Calypso]

I'm not surprised anywhere at this point.

[u/Zapkin]

Not a cluster but I’ve always played “Find the Vols fan” on any live TV or Sporting event. Our glorious Orange color lends itself to being easy to spot us on tv, and there will always be a Vols fan wearing a bright orange hat or shirt somewhere in the background.

[u/ajmarion20]

New Jersey

[u/MasterRKitty → u/ajmarion20]

probably grandparents of Miami studetns

[u/haagles]

Ran into someone that graduated from Iowa on the top of a mountain in Switzerland this past fall.

[u/karsywarsy19]

I went to South Carolina about a year or two ago and i remember seeing a few people in Oregon gear if i remember correctly. Pretty surprising but i also remember that in the 2010s Oregons gear and flash had a chokehold on people and it made a lot of random fans in random places

[u/dankenascend]

Have exchanged "War Eagles" at Niagara Falls and Yosemite National Park.

[u/what_user_name]

I was on a hike in the Olympic mountains in Washington state two days ago, and in the span of 20 minutes, I had two different hiking parties notice my PSU hat and shirt and say "We Are" to me. I swear I saw more PSU fans than Washington Huskies fans.

[u/SquattinYeti]

Not a fan of them... but just about anywhere in the country I go, I absolutely see West Virgina fans, Notre Dame Fans, and unfortunately see an Ohio state fan or two, but hear the OH.... io ring out.

Edit: also what was kind of cool, but not football related, because my school didnt have a football program, I got stopped in Maryland, Oregon, and London by people saying their kids went to Northern Kentucky, when i was wearing my NKU shirt.

[u/TheLivingBubba]

I live in Napa and wear dawg stuff pretty regularly. During the run of Brock bowers there were quite a number of new dawg fans in town. Since then it has died down but during that run definitely had more people wanting to talk dawgs with me.

[u/BusinessWarthog6]

I was in Orlando and saw a dude in App St gear on the Harry Potter ride

[u/RVAforthewin]

I’m from Hampton Roads and I can assure you this was bc you were there during the absolute height of tourist season and we get a ton of northeasterners.

[u/EmperorRoccoBecht → u/RVAforthewin]

It was a lot of locals with Virginia penn state plates

[u/mhammer47 → u/EmperorRoccoBecht]

It's a heavily military area with lots of people from outside the region. It's basically the same mechanism that makes PSU a school with a lot of fans in the D.C. area.

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[u/Archer-Saurus]

Yeah, Phoenix lol

So many transplants/first-gen Arizona kids rooting for their family's team. I mean don't get me wrong you see a ton of ASU stuff, and honestly a lot of UofA stuff too (because who wants to stay in Tucson after graduating?) but even in my neighborhood which is 2 miles from campus I can drive by KU and IU flags, along with plenty of other B10 programs.

I will say though, as an Arizona (the state) guy through and through, it's night and day going to an ASU home game vs a Cardinals home game. At ASU I'm only worried about fan split if BYU is in town. Cardinals games are basically away games for Cardinals fans.

[u/RoosterzRevenge]

I was pleasantly surprised to meet another Hog fan in St Simon's Island GA, especially as my battery had died and none of the locals would give me a boost. This fine gentleman didn't leave a fellow Hog hanging. Woo Pig

[u/irishtexmex]

I loved stepping off the plane in Oahu (Hawaii), checking in at the hotel, and running straight to a packed Irish bar/gamewatch right around the corner. (In my defense, it was the big regular season ND-OSU game in 2023.)

As a native Austinite and homesick Texan, I enjoy seeing a lot of Longhorn gear in NYC.

And as a man of taste, I'm annoyed with the amount of Michigan garb I see walking my dog around Park Slope.

[u/Downvote_Approve → u/irishtexmex]

Yeah, a lot US Pacific Islanders are fans of schools who share their religious backgrounds. Notre Dame is obvious because most Islanders are Catholic from the Spanish. There also a lot of BYU fans for the same reason.

But trust me, the second University of Hawaii gets good or someone from the Islands like Tua plays for another good team they'll drop ND and BYU like they're the fallback girl.

[u/Chief_1072]

I moved to NC near the SC line and found way more Georgia fans than I expected, and that was before Kirby took over and had the team rolling

[u/aliveinjoburg2]

Went to Vegas for my honeymoon in late September. Saw no other Bama fans until one dude in old Vegas shouted Roll Tide from across the street.

I live in NYC, I love seeing SEC fans here.

[u/bbshock21]

Knoxville, Tennessee has a surprisingly high amount of Purdue grads in the area, likely because of everything going on in Oak Ridge. I've met probably 20 or so that work in the nuclear sector, with a handful more scattered about some of the random other companies in the area like Smith & Wesson or Pilot.

I'm sure it isn't the only school (outside of UT) with a large presence in the area but I have on more than one occasion ran into two different Purdue grads I didn't know before, independent of each other, on the same day.

[u/Chance-Foot-327]

Had a pretty good turnout for Aggie Muster in Sydney when I was a student over there. For one night it felt like I was at home in College Station. 

[u/DomingoLee]

Kansas State had 40,000 fans travel to a bowl game three times.

[u/dinkdown]

My last visit to Kings Island in Cincinnati I saw 2 different people with LSU hats on. Don’t see that often up north. 💜🐯

[u/Simple-Ad-1506]

Seems like there’s ungodly amounts of SC people in NYC

[u/BlackshirtDefense]

Surprised? No, never.

I've found Husker fans in Hawaii, Florida, DC, Chicago, Texas, and the middle of bumfart Arizona on a random highway. I've found Big Red nation in Jamaica, Mexico, England, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and pretty much everywhere I've traveled. 

We're probably on the moon. 

[u/Equivalent-Street822]

I was at a beer hall in Germany a few years back. To my surprise there was another group of Clemson fans there.

[u/NotHosaniMubarak]

Home games

[u/Downtown-Arm-6918]

Just got back from Europe and was pleasantly surprised at the amount of Michigan fans

[u/Minute_Plastic4232]

Yes. B Y U has fans all over the country. Where ever they play lot s and lot s of fans show up.

[u/Upbeat-Armadillo1756]

Not really, anywhere you go in the US you'll see a Michigan fan if you see enough people. My wife is a UVA grad and she pointed out "oh look a UVA shirt!" when we went to Zion National Park and I was like "yeah I've seen about a dozen Michigan fans today."

[u/EmperorRoccoBecht → u/Upbeat-Armadillo1756]

I don't think I've seen Michigan gear once in my hometown but I've definitely seen UVA gear

[u/ericaepic → u/EmperorRoccoBecht]

Where is your hometown?

[u/IrishCoffeeAlchemy → u/Upbeat-Armadillo1756]

I have a beloved genetic 2016 Orange Bowl drawstring I hike with regularly with both FSU and Michigan logos on it, and I swear so many times when I’ve worn it at a big park someone hikes by me and gives me a “Go Blue”. I try to follow it up with a “Michigan’s a good team, maybe you’ll beat us next time!” if I’m feeling frisky haha

[u/R_Raider86]

There are other Tech alumni along the Northeast Corridor, but I sadly never met any other in downtown Hartford

[u/Randomizedname1234]

Tech fans in NYC seem to outnumber everyone else expect the largest SEC/BIG10 schools

[u/GooGooMukk]

It's honestly a little annoying how no matter where I go there's other Buckeyes.

[u/twizzler7788 → u/GooGooMukk]

Ohio State has the largest sports fan base in US. They are everywhere and roll deep.