There were other things, such as statues of Confederates and the desire to replace them with one's related to the history of black students (that's what they really are, right?). It was a series of things.
The Eyes struck at the core of the fans bond with the school AND the players. I'd wager that +90% of the fans had no idea of it's origins. I know I didn't. It was just the tradition of the school and it was about love; not hate.
As for watching games, I have seen many since the early 1990's. Though I didn't go to UT (I went to Trinity), I've loved the school since I first saw Bevo and Big Bertha on TV when I was a child. I am VERY HAPPY that it's all-white past is behind us. But that can be said about our entire nation. And maybe all of this happening so close to home is providing the empathy (woke?) of the reality that being black in America is difficult as opposed to being white from a relative point of view. And that the psychology of the human mind is a very deep subject and one that we all can admit is something that we each grapple with on some level due to our experiences in life. I know I do. I pop off in anger at the dumbest things and it's something I know about myself. Why is that so? I don't know. I've had a good life but there were many challenges such as a horrible marriage that resulted in me gaining full custody of my daughter this month. It gnawed at me and made me tired and possibly is the reason for a lazy mind in terms of emotional control. But nothing pressed on me in terms of my worth as a human being (except the rejection of women that in hind-sight were absolute jokes; my bad in my choice of partners). So to be black and confront the horrible, despicable treatment they received from the hand of whites, and then to see white's AT BEST pretend to be woke when in fact it seems they're doing it only as a fad must be galling to say the least. Black people have been treated as inferiors for centuries and we have to believe that the human mind cannot withstand such a constant reminder. OF COURSE it has an affect. And what we are shocked by their reaction then maybe we should instead be shocked by our own. I know that I have a deeply emotional response when I see documentaries of the holocaust. I should have the same response when I see pictures of lynchings and modern day racists who are so sick in the head that it should be sickening to me.
So in the end, we shouldn't be surprised. But it's our Bevo that is being gored so we are resistant. We want to feel that we are good people. And so many of us are in fact good people.
But we have not lived their story. They have. And we know our own story well; it is the reason why we are the way we are.
Well, their story is why they are the way they are and their story is not fiction.
I hope I didn't over-step my bounds on this one as it's not a political forum but in the end, the viewpoint of a potential recruit is what we are wondering about because the recruits are not coming here as we expected.