“My daughter goes here, so we get season tickets, and we’re going to make a transfer to green in about two hours,” McDonald said at noon Saturday.

McDonald is one of many Washington State alumni who attend College GameDay every week in support of his team. The alumni have a Cougar flag they ship to each other around the nation so it makes it to GameDay.

The flag has been making appearances at GameDay for the last 10 years, and Saturday marks the 112th consecutive showing.

The tradition began in 2001 when Washington State had its first of three consecutive 10-win seasons. During those three seasons through 2003, Cougar fans begged GameDay to come to one of their games, but it never happened.

“We had three 10-win seasons in a row, and College GameDay never came to Pullman, (Wash.),” Chicago resident Chawn White said. “So we decided to go to College GameDay.”

Before Washington State alumni began FedEx shipping the flag around the country, White said individual fans would travel everywhere from Texas to Penn State to Wisconsin — where White said he has already been this season.

With alumni everywhere, White said there is an email list where people can volunteer to take the flag depending on where College GameDay goes, and this week, it made it to East Lansing.

“There are some pretty well established people that are in the Michigan area and in Ohio and anywhere in the Big Ten and then also in the PAC 10 and the SEC,” White said.

The traveling flag has been taken over by Washington State’s alumni association as a fundraiser and help find a weekend home for the flag.

Whether it’s first-timers or people who have traveled to campuses across the nation, Cougar fans unite to represent their school at GameDay. McDonald said the tradition has become so important to the alumni that he doesn’t think it will ever end now.

“People come out of the woodwork for this,” he said.

First-time GameDay attendees include Kalamazoo, Mich. residents Gordon and Joyce Hare. As longtime Washington State fans and alumni, the couple was very excited to get a taste of the GameDay atmosphere.

“We just got an email earlier this week sent to alumni and asked if we’d like to be involved,” Gordon Hare said. “We said, ‘Yes,’ and here we are.”

What started in response to being ignored by GameDay now has evolved into a weekly tradition for Cougars around the country. Fans get as excited for GameDay as if their own team was playing, and they’re loyal to the long-standing tradition.

“They wouldn’t come to us,” McDonald said. “So it as basically, if they’re not going to come to us, we’re going to go to them.”