Ohio State Exposed! Welcome to the Big 10 Coach Meyer, bet you didn't know your new players were saying this on Twitter!
In the 6th piece of our 7 week series on the negative social impact that Twitter is having on the reputation of amateur athletes, we turn our focus to Ohio State. New head coach Urban Meyer was rumored to have banned Twitter for Buckeyes players in early January, but those rumors turned out to be inaccurate. From the behavior of his incoming recruits, he may want to rethink implementing that policy.
Over the last two months, bad behavior on Twitter has been everywhere. It started with Chat Sports breaking a story on Yuri Wright losing his scholarship offer to Michigan due to his racy tweets. Later, 5-star recruit Stefon Diggs got in some hot water over insensitive comments made regarding Jeremy Lin: "Everybody needs to get off Jeremy Lin egg roll and dumplings he's good though." That tweet by Diggs garneded national negative attention to the super recruit headed to Maryland this fall. Diggs later deleted the Tweet and issued an apology.
In February, the NCAA suspended Matt Faiella, a linebacker on the Stony Brook University football team after he posted a message on Twitter using an "offensive racial reference." Faiella will not be permitted to play in next year's playoffs if Stony Brook qualifies for the postseason. The offending tweet occurred in early December when Faiella used a offensive word to describe players at an opposing school. To date, none of the local news reports have reprinted the offending tweet.
Just yesterday, Michigan self-reported a potential violation by WR Roy Roundtree, who seemingly was being pleasant by congratulating a high school player who recently committed the Wolverines. In February, Michigan spokesmen discussed with Chat Sports at length about the thorough social media training that they give their athletes . . . but it clearly wasn't enough to teach Roundtree the NCAA rules on tweeting.
Also yesterday, MSNBC broke a story on how colleges and government agencies are monitoring social networking account of prospective employees and students. The report even went to detail how athletic departments have dedicated a coach for each sports that monitors the social networking accounts of players . . . but apparently not incoming recruits.
So, are the below tweets out of the ordinary for today's teens? It depends on who you ask. But, any level headed fan will agree that there needs to be more behavioral training in high schools and colleges to teach today's youth that their behavior, even on social media, is being scrutinized.
When publishing the tweets below by members of the 2012 Ohio State football recruiting class, we will point out the following facts:
* Each of these recruits, on average, gave 13 interviews in the last year with MAJOR media outlets such as ESPN, Yahoo Sports or Fox Sports.
* Several of these recruits announced their college destination on national TV.
* The majority of them held a press conference to announce their college choice.
* None of the high schools they attend ,except Fork Union Military Academy, have formal policies on proper social media use for athletes.
Noah Spence, 5-star DE, #9 player nationally by Rivals
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Bishop McDevitt high
Tyvis Powell, 3-star CB, #33 player in Ohio
Bedford, OH
Sevon Pittman, 4-star DE, #95 player nationally by Rivals
Canton, OH McKinley high
David Perkins, 4-star RB, #159 player nationally by Rivals
South Bend, IN Washington high
Najee Murray, 4-star DB, #18 player in OH by Rivals
Steubenville, OH
Bri'onte Dunn, 4-star RB, #138 player nationally by Rivals
Canton, OH Glenoak high
Jacoby Boren, 3-star OL, #50 player in Ohio
Pickerington, OH Central high
De'van Bogard, 4-star S, #16 player in Ohio by Rivals
Mike Thomas, 4-star WR
Fork Union, VA Fork Union Military Academy
For those unfamiliar with 'Turnt', the definition from UrbanDictionary.com: "Smoking or Smoked. Process of either being or getting stoned/high, drunk, f*cked up"
Roger Lewis, 4-star WR, #20 player in Ohio by Rivals
Pickerington, OH Central high
Lewis was committed to OSU for 6 months but ended up not signing with the Buckeyes on signing day due to academic concerns. Lewis has not indicated where he will end up.
Further reading: 2012 Top recruiting classes EXPOSED by Tweets
What other schools are being exposed by Twitter?
Follow the 2012 Buckeye recruits on Twitter:
| Warren Ball | https://twitter.com/#!/warrenb_ |
| De'van Bogard | https://twitter.com/#!/thedevanbogard |
| Jacoby Boren | https://twitter.com/#!/j_boren50 |
| Taylor Decker | None |
| Bri'onte Dunn | https://twitter.com/#!/dunnitalready25 |
| Pat Elflein | https://twitter.com/#!/elflein60 |
| Frank Epitropoulos | https://twitter.com/#!/f_epitropoulos |
| Cardale Jones | https://twitter.com/#!/Cordale10 |
| Roger Lewis | https://twitter.com/#!/PrimeTimeLewis |
| Najee Murray | https://twitter.com/#!/naj_gotthejuice |
| Joey O'Connor | None |
| David Perkins | https://twitter.com/#!/StudntOfDaGame |
| Se'von Pittman | https://twitter.com/#!/S_PITT |
| Tyvis Powell | https://twitter.com/#!/TyvisPowell_1 |
| Luke Roberts | https://twitter.com/#!/lukeroberts5 |
| Tommy Schutt | None |
| Ricquan Southward | https://twitter.com/#!/ricquan9 |
| Noah Spence | https://twitter.com/#!/nspence94 |
| Blake Thomas | None |
| Michael Thomas | https://twitter.com/#!/CantGuardMike |
| Adolphus Washington | None |
| Camren Williams | https://twitter.com/#!/CamrenWilliams5 |
Alex Jones, Tipp Smith and Mack Ferguson contributed on this article.
***Note from the Editor: This is obviously going to be a very controversial article. We decided to publish the middle ground of what we uncovered. For all 6 schools featured, we discovered evidence of gambling on football, drugs, alcohol on recruiting visits and mentions of improper recruiting benefits that we chose not to publish.***
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If you would like to discuss this article with out staff, please email writers@chatsports.com
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