Must Read: Twitter is ruining the reputations of star high school football players

New Jersey 4-star cornerback Yuri Wright made news for all the wrong reasons 2 weeks ago after it was reported by that he had lost his scholarship offer to Michigan due to racially and sexually offensive tweets. After the story broke, officials at his High School, Don Bosco Prep, decided to expel the star player from school on a permanent basis.

See MORE tweets like this from high school athletes - scroll down article

Based on the unbelievable reaction from fans, major sports media outlets and coaches on this story, the writing staff of Chat Sports has analyzed whether or not the coaches at Michigan, and other high-profile schools, were in fact hypocritical in dropping Yuri Wright as a recruiting target when many of their committed prospects in the 2012 class may be publishing similar tweets as well.

The results of our research were shocking. Not only are tweets similar to Yuri Wrights not uncommon, they were quiet normal for the majority of high profile football players in the 2012 recruiting class.

Our writing staff dug deep into the Twitter accounts of players on the 2012 National Top 100 list by ESPN and of players committed to six of the highest profile schools college football: Michigan, Oregon, Ohio State, Alabama, LSU and Notre Dame. What made us choose these schools? Quiet simple, actually. The Ohio State and Oregon football programs have been embattled in scandal in the past 24 months and we wanted to know if they looked into the character of potential players prior to recruiting them. Michigan and Notre Dame are the 2 most storied programs in college football and were both recruiting Yuri Wright until news of his Twitter account went national . . . were they being hypocritical? Lastly, we would be fools if we didn't look into the 2 highest profile programs in college football right now, LSU and Alabama, and compare how these programs recruits behaved on public social media platforms.

Share your vote: Should NCAA schools monitor the Twitter accounts of recruits?

Over the next 2 months, Chat Sports will publish a ground breaking story on the socially, racially and sexually unacceptable tweets that have been published publicly by members of the 6 high profile recruiting classes.

Make sure to bookmark this link and mark your calendar to come back every Tuesday to read what is sure to be the article of the year in collegiate athletics!

When is each school being exposed by Twitter?

2/7/2012: Michigan

2/14/2012: Notre Dame

2/21/2012: LSU

2/28/2012: Alabama

3/6/2012: Ohio State

3/13/2012: Oregon

Being that this is a topic of high interest as of late, a glance at instances of improper social media from athletes:

January 13, 2008: Wake Forest football player Lucas Caparelli makes a 'joke' on his Facebook page that he will blow up the school on return from Winter Break. Caparelli was kicked out of school the following week.

September 11, 2009: Arkansas basketball player Courtney Forston makes an insensitive comment about rape on his Twitter account. He was suspended from the team.

September 5, 2010: Australian Olympic swimmer tells opponent to "suck on that faggots" after Australia beat South Africa in a rugby match. She lost her endorsement deal with Jaguar.

September 28, 2010: Oklahoma football player Jaz Reynolds tells residence of Austin, TX to "kill themselves" on Twitter in wake of a suicide in the UT student library the day earlier. This tweet was made during the week of the Texas-Oklahoma game. Reynolds was suspended for the season.

October 25, 2009: NFL running back Larry Johnson uses the word "fag" in a tweet. Johnson was suspended and fined $213,00 by the league.

May 20, 2010: Chargers WR Demetrius Byrd asks if it's 'gay' to listen to Justin Beiber. He is cut from the team.

February 2, 2011: Florida safety Will Hill tweets a series of explicit tweets about his sexual desires and where he wants to participate in these acts. He is asked not to return to the team by incoming coach Will Muschamp.

May 2, 2011: Steelers rb Rashard Mendenhall comes out in support of Osama Bin Laden after the terrorists death is celebrates by Americans. Mendenhall instantly becomes the dumbest man in America in the eyes of fellow athletes and loses his only endorsement deal, with Champion.

December 2, 2011: Lehigh football player Ryan Spadola uses a racial slur in a tweet to a friend. The University responds by suspending him from the team.

What we can learn from the above social media outbursts is that your actions online have consequences. We are living in a new era of communication and the coaches, parents and administrators of high school athletes need to take action and realize that their star athletes are going to get themselves into a boatload of trouble in the future unless we all remove our heads from the sand on this issue.

Just because we focused on the tweets of athletes of 6 schools doesn't mean that they are the only schools with recruits sending out offensive content on their Twitter account. Of the 2012 ESPN Top 20 classes as of this morning, every one of the classes has a top recruit with offensive content on their Twitter account, many with multiple athletes tweeting offensive materials.

During our research, we spoke with coaches and administrators from high schools with high profile athletes. What you will learn in the coming weeks is that although most of the adult figures in the lives of these high school athletes mean well, they have no idea what their athletes are saying online and they are completely unprepared to deal with issues that may arise from use of social media.

Our goal with writing this series on social media in athletics is not to get kids in trouble. It is to open the eyes of every adult reading this to take action. Recruiting is a $100 million/year business and every person that has read a tweet from the athletes featured in this series and didn't take action to address the behavior is telling that athlete that it is ok to tweet about sex, drugs, alcohol, homophobia and gambling with no consequences.

College football National Signing Day was February 1. Below are the top 20 classes and a snippet of the tweets that athletes that comprised those classes. Every one of the below Tweets is accessible to any person that has a computer, a Twitter account is not required to read them on the players account.

School Offensive Tweeter
Alabama Dillon Lee
FSU Jameis Winston
Texas Adrian Colbert
Florida Dante Phillips
Georgia Keith Marshall
Ohio State Najee Murray
Michigan Erik Magnuson
Miami Raphael Kirby
Clemson Ronald Geohaghan
Notre Dame Chris Brown
Oklahoma Derrick Woods
Stanford Aziz Shittu
USC Darreus Rogers
LSU Derek Edinburgh
Texas A&M Bralon Addison
South Carolina Shaq Roland
Auburn Javiere Mitchell
Oregon Oshay Dunbar
UCLA Tairen Owens

Dillon Lee - Alabama

 

 

 

 

 

Jameis Winston - FSU

 

Adrian Colbert - Texas

 

 

Dante Phillips - Florida 

 

Keith Marshall - Georgia 

 

Najee Murray - Ohio State 

 

 

Erik Magnuson - Michigan 

 

Raphael Kirby - Miami 

 

Ronald Geohaghan - Clemson 

 

Chris Brown - Notre Dame 

 

Derrick Woods - Oklahoma 

 

Aziz Shittu - Stanford 

 

Darreus Rogers - USC 

 

Derek Edinburgh - LSU 

 

Bralon Addison - Texas A&M 

 

Shaq Roland - Texas A&M 

 

 

Javiere Mitchell - Auburn 

 

Oshay Dunmore - Oregon 

 

Tairen Owens - UCLA 

 

 

To follow the members of the ESPN Top 100 of 2012 on Twitter, please review the list of accounts below:

Player School Twitter Account
Mario Edwards FSU https://twitter.com/#!/RioBoi_17
Dorial Green-Beckham https://twitter.com/#!/DorialGreenB
Landon Collins Alabama none
Arik Armstead Oregon https://twitter.com/#!/arikarmstead
D.J. Humphries Florida None
Shaq Thompson Cal https://twitter.com/#!/ItsShaqThompson
Malcom Brown Texas https://twitter.com/#!/malcombrown_90
Eddie Williams Alabama None
Johnathan Gray Texas https://twitter.com/#!/JGray32
Stefon Diggs Undecided None
Kyle Murphy Stanford None
Noah Spence OSU https://twitter.com/#!/nspence94
T.J. Yeldon Alabama https://twitter.com/#!/T_Yeldon
Eddie Goldman FSU None
Dante Fowler FSU None
Ronald Darby FSU None
Deontay Greenberry ND None
Javonte Magee Baylor None
Ryan Anderson Alabama https://twitter.com/#!/Anderson_365
Adolphus Washington OSU None
Keith Marshall Georgia https://twitter.com/#!/Truthh4
Eli Harold UVA None
Darius Hamilton Rutgers https://twitter.com/#!/BoscoLegend94
Gunner Kiel ND https://twitter.com/#!/GunnerKiel
Trey Williams Tex AM None
Jameis Winston FSU https://twitter.com/#!/UnleashthaBeast
Isaac Seumalo Oregon St None
Jordan Jenkins Georgia none
Duke Johnson Miami https://twitter.com/#!/D3jr93
Jonathan Bullard Florida None
Nelson Agholor USC https://twitter.com/#!/NelsonAgh3
Josh Harvey-Clemons Georgia https://twitter.com/#!/J_Dat25
Alex Ross Okla None
Devin Fuller UCLA https://twitter.com/#!/Devin7Fuller
John Theus Georgia https://twitter.com/#!/jtheus71
Channing Ward Ole Miss https://twitter.com/#!/WardChanning
Kwontie Moore UVA https://twitter.com/#!/kwontie27
Zach Kline Cal https://twitter.com/#!/zachklineQB
Reggie Ragland Alabama https://twitter.com/#!/reggieragland
Tracy Howard Miami None
Mario Pender FSU None
Chris Black Alabama None
Ellis McCarthy UCLA None
Thomas Johnson Texas A&M https://twitter.com/#!/tee_johnson3
Mike Davis S. Carolina https://twitter.com/#!/Mike28davis
Kevon Seymour USC None
Leonard Williams USC None
Yuri Wright Colorado None that is confirmed
Chris Casher FSU https://twitter.com/#!/chriscasher
Tee Shepard ND https://twitter.com/#!/tshepard08
Ondre Pipkins Michigan https://twitter.com/#!/PeeWee9456
Shaq Roland S. Carolina https://twitter.com/#!/SR2_5starATH
Davonte Neal undecided https://twitter.com/#!/steelercraze92
Dan Voltz Wisconsin https://twitter.com/#!/HighVoltzage
Carlos Watkins Clemson https://twitter.com/#!/BigCat_94
Amari Cooper Alabama None
Todd Gurley Georgia https://twitter.com/#!/TG1UNO
Darreus Rogers USC https://twitter.com/#!/D_Rog5
Joe Bolden Michigan https://twitter.com/#!/JBolden_007
Jessamen Dunker Florida None
Rushel Shell Pitt https://twitter.com/#!/RushelShell
Kyle Kalis Michigan None
Jonathan Taylor Georgia None
Alex Carter Stanford https://twitter.com/#!/ARCarter2
Andrus Peat Stanford https://twitter.com/#!/AndrusPeat1
Geno Smith Alabama https://twitter.com/#!/SmithGeno4
Noor Davis Stanford None
Joshua Garnett Stanford https://twitter.com/#!/IamJoshG
Curtis Riser Texas https://twitter.com/#!/_MrKodac
Jabari Ruffin USC https://twitter.com/#!/Jayruff7
Jordan Diamond undecided https://twitter.com/#!/Jordan76simeon
Erik Magnuson Michigan https://twitter.com/ - !/erikmagnuson77
Chris Wormley Michigan https://twitter.com/#!/chriswormley47
Torshiro Davis LSU https://twitter.com/#!/TorshiroD
Cyler Miles Washington https://twitter.com/#!/cylermiles10
Cyrus Jones Alabama https://twitter.com/#!/CyrusJ5
Angelo Jean-Louis Miami None
Ricky Parks Auburn None
Travis Wilson Utah https://twitter.com/#!/twilsongog
Aziz Shittu Stanford https://twitter.com/#!/AzizShittu
Sheldon Day ND https://twitter.com/#!/S_NDbound_Day91
Armani Reeves Penn St. https://twitter.com/#!/PTReeves8
Anthony Alford S. Missouri None
Brian Nance Baylor None
Aaron Burbridge Michigan St. https://twitter.com/#!/chocolethundr16
Tanner Mangum BYU https://twitter.com/#!/tannermangum
Kennedy Estelle Texas None
Kenyan Drake Alabama https://twitter.com/#!/swooshme_x17
Kendall Sanders Texas https://twitter.com/#!/kendallespn10
Marvin Bracy FSU https://twitter.com/#!/2mb93
Bralon Addison Texas AM https://twitter.com/#!/Bralon_Addison2
Sheldon Dawson Memphis None
Jeremy Liggins LSU None
DeVante Harris Texas AM None
Brian Poole Florida None
Markuss Eligwe FSU https://twitter.com/#!/MarkussEligwe
Adrian Colbert Texas https://twitter.com/#!/ACtooCold1
Ifeadi Odenigbo NW https://twitter.com/#!/IfeadiOdenigbo
Raphael Kirby Miami https://twitter.com/#!/killaXkirb
Jalen Cope-Fitzpatrick USC None

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