Tag Archives: South Florida

2014-15 College Sports Social Media Awards

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All I do is win, win, win no matter what.

All I do is win, win, win no matter what.

I hope you enjoyed the appetizer of the ESPYS because it’s time to recognize the more important stuff. The social media masters in our NCAA bubble. Social Media award

Last year, my post was a big hit and I went all out this time. No I didn’t see everything on Twitter and Facebook and if I did I would be a synthetic on Humans. Trust me, I saw enough, but feel free to let me know if there was something you think I should have recognized. Now let’s take a look at these manufactured awards.

Best way to embarrass your players: Vanderbilt
Vanderbilt had a great spring sports season with baseball and tennis, so with all the excitement can you blame the track team for taking a nap to recharge? Apparently, their own teammate could not. Anchor down means staying on the internet forever.

Worst use of a statistic: UConn Football
I get it UConn football, you are constantly trying to get your team out of the shadows of the best basketball programs in the country. The countdowns though are coming across as desperate.

That’s right, we are counting down to play a FCS team! Not Rutgers, not Boston College, not even Temple but FCS Villanova. Get your tickets now!

Even worse was the punting statistic. In a 12-game season 66 punts is 5.5 punts a game. That’s a problem as UConn gave up the third highest points in American Athletic Conference play last season. Roughly 30 points per contest. Don’t brag about forcing punts when you are being scored on every other possession.

Best use of democracy: Georgia Tech
Who knew the Yellow Jackets would go to the public for fashion advice?

Best presentation of starting lineup: Missouri
There were plenty of great designs out there for starting lineups in basketball but I like what Missouri did here with the black and white contrast. Now that’s some good layering in the photo edit.

Best soccer starting lineup: East Tennessee State
While I liked what Missouri did for basketball I have to give ETSU credit for their soccer efforts. I gotta have more tactical lineups like these.

Most insecure: North Dakota State
I seriously don’t know what I did. I was a big fan of the Bison winning numerous FCS titles and getting on College Gameday too. This hurts NDSU.

No longer on the Christmas card list.

No longer on the Christmas card list.

Best prognostication: Georgia State
In what ended up being the most entertaining game of the NCAA Tournament, the Panthers knew that an upset was in order thanks to an official box score. Sorry Baylor.

Most shameless advertisement: FIU
FIU has always been in need of cash and well… let’s have a word from our sponsor.

Selfie of the year by mascot: Kentucky
Here is a school not in need of cash. Why every team should have a midnight madness like Kentucky.

Best at making announcements: Northern Illinois
NIU is developing a tradition of making a big deal about future football games. And I have to say #SchedulePalooza is pretty cool. The Huskies drop hints making fans work a digital scavenger hunt to determine the teams NIU will play in a few years.

Worst graphic: Arizona
The defensive player of the week has NO EYES! What an incredible performance by her!

Worst logo placement: Siena
You may accuse me of having my mind in the gutter but a woman’s waistline should never be used for branding. Or a man’s for that matter. Siena is a great follow but this post was not one of the best.

Best costume by a media member: Shae Peppler
Going back to a Miami school with Shae Peppler of Campus Insiders somehow pulling off an Al Golden for Halloween. Didn’t know his tie was so iconic.

Best female media personality to follow: Nicole Auerbach
Auerbach is one of the few who covers college basketball and football equally. She is also one of the few women to be on television as a college football expert for the Big Ten Network. Plus she retweeted me last year. So all the power to her.

Best male media personality to follow: Pat Forde
Until Seth Davis covers other sports besides basketball, Pat Forde is and will always be the man.

Most Harsh: UTEP
This about sums it up.
http://www.midmajormadness.com/2015/3/17/8240159/utep-miner-athletics-uses-twitter-to-put-down-their-own-player

Best food promotion: Iowa State
Now that is a social media promotion.

Best photo shoot: Tie between Pepperdine and Bowling Green State
Yeah I whiffed with a tie but how are you supposed to choose between these two?

Best social media rivalry: MAC vs. the Sun Belt
A great way to have the other bowl games be more impactful is to have the conferences duke it out Twitter. Well done MAC and Sun Belt. Well done.

Best tweet: Jacksonville State
Now this photo demonstrates what college sports should be all about. Playing for your school, having fun and getting that degree. You can stop advertising NCAA. We have found your marketing tool.

Best team selfies: Niagra Women’s Basketball
Have you ever been stuck on the interstate for 24 hours because of a snowstorm? No? Well here is what it looks like.

Best way to celebrate a milestone: New Hampshire
Reaching 700 wins in any sport is a big deal. You truly have to put your body into it.

Best to chat with: Southern Miss
Want to chat with your favorite Golden Eagle? You don’t even have to leave your laptop.

Best video series: American Athletic Conference
American Rising hosted by Hali Oughton became the most informative regular on my news feed this year. The AAC is still new and an odd mix of schools so this media effort helps get it organized for fans.

Best conference on Facebook: Mountain West
For Facebook, I want to see photo galleries. The Mountain West does a tremendous job of providing exactly that for most of its games. This Facebook banner is pretty good too. MWC 7 teams

Best conference to follow: Big West
The Big West celebrates every holiday, offers plenty of photos for every sport and how can you beat this?

Best video by a school: South Florida
A great way to promote a sport like volleyball. This promotion idea was cute and I hope that more videos like these will increase interest for the volleyball program at USF.

Best game show by a team: Florida State Sand Volleyball
On the other side of the state, FSU tried some video ideas of its own with a game show theme. I’m all for getting sand volleyball more attention even in cheesy ways like this, but I don’t think you need two parts here. Still, the effort is to be applauded.

Best school to follow on social media No. 5: Georgia Southern
Now to the top five schools to follow on Twitter. The Eagles made some nice info graphics for their teams this year. Here is a look at a soccer example.

Best school to follow on social media No. 4: Western Kentucky
WKU promoted their sports equally with photo shoots and other promotional graphics. The Hilltoppers had fun too with this color coordinated seating chart.

Best school to follow on social media No. 3: Oregon State
No school made better use of its color scheme on social media than the orange and black of Oregon State. Their posts were hard to miss.

Best school to follow on social media No. 2: Colorado State
Colorado State did an excellent job using photography. It always seemed to grab my attention with the bold colors the Rams would use.

Best school to follow on social media No. 1: Kansas State
The best combination of game updates, photography, promotions, statistics and design has to be Kansas State. The Wildcats were active promoting every game from every team and every result. I feel like I’m in the know about K-State despite living a few states away.

Plus how do compete with a promotion like this?

2013-2014 College Sports Social Media Awards

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And the award for best profile banner goes to...

And the award for best profile banner goes to…

Making fun of how schools, conferences, and media personalities operate on social media is what sports bloggers that are not credentialed do best. Now that we have hit the doldrums of the college sports calendar it’s time unveil best and the worst from the past year. Note there is no way anyone can see every tweet and Facebook video that made it online. Well, unless you’re Lt. Commander Data. This is about the stuff I actually saw and that you may have missed.

Best School to Follow on Twitter: Morehead State

When it comes to Twitter I want a school that gives me the stats and updates from a game yet still have passion and humor. Morehead State does that during every basketball game. Take a look at their “Blackout.”

They are not afraid to be subjective in the right moments. Might be the only time a school used “clobbered” in a tweet all year.

Helping the Eagles out though is men’s basketball coach Sean Woods. He is an emotional guy and props to Morehead for posting his postgame comments on You Tube. Just looking at his eyes you can tell he wants to tell the world how he truly feels but is holding himself back.

Worst School to Follow on Twitter: Grambling State

This was too easy. Just one Tweet in five years.

Most Romantic School in Social Media: Kansas State

The Wildcats have tried many ways to get their purple hue out on the internet. Including #WildcatWeddings

That not enough for you? They do Valentine’s Day too.

Manhattan, Kansas: where romance and college sports social media collide.

Most Impatient School in Social Media: Western Kentucky

It only snows in Bowling Green, Kentucky a few times a year so I you have to make the most of it when you can. The Hilltoppers though took it a little far and went full football countdown in January. Instead of witty joke it came across as a depressing reminder that the season is far, far away.

Worst Promotion in Social Media: Texas Christian University

The Horn Frogs have been cannon fodder out on the basketball court since joining the Big-12. So how does TCU fill seats in its gym? FRIED PICKLES! Yuck.

Most Confusing School in Social Media: Texas Tech

TCU’s conference brother Texas Tech didn’t do much better as it dropped some tweets that befuddled the brain more than a Michael Bay movie.

A wallet? Just any type of wallet will do. Well shoot let me empty out mine… Here you go. Now where’s my free books?

Best Way to Promote a Publication: Vanderbilt

Students at Vanderbilt are so smart, they can study underwater!

School with the Most Swagger on Social Media: North Dakota State

The Bison won the FCS title and won a game in the NCAA Tournament this past year. Throw in this jab at the SEC schools during a blizzard in the South and you have one school ready to flaunt itself all over the web.

Dumbest Tweet of the Year: Georgia State

The only time I think I’ve seen an athletic department engage in a Twitter war with a fan. Thought it was impossible but I was proven wrong. Please tell the Georgia State athletic department to never use the phrase “Boo You” again.

Best Conference to Follow in Social Media: Big West Conference

The Big West is great at having large photo galleries of their events and athletes of the week. They are also the most patriotic placing their All-Americans in front of a computer generated American flag.

The Big West Conference is more American than the American (AAC).

The Big West Conference is more American than the American (AAC).

The Big West is also one of the few leagues that celebrate holidays and special events.
Big West Easter

Big West ground hog

That’s right, the Big West celebrated Easter and Groundhog Day by changing their profile pictures. You would think some league in the nation’s heartland would do that but nope. A league based in Hawaii and California did instead.

Best Campaign in Social Media: Atlantic-10

The A-10 is tired of being treated as a Cinderella and did a pretty good job of shedding that perception in their Who Wants Next Campaign. You can read my previous post about it here.

Would still be a great episode on "Once Upon a Time" though.

Would still be a great episode on “Once Upon a Time” though.

Best Video Made by a Conference: Missouri Valley

The MVC made a video hosted by Teryn Schaefer to meet all of the fan bases as they came to St. Louis for the Conference Tournament. While I’m tired of “Happy” the song worked well here and it captured the awesomeness of “Arch Madness.”

 

Most Creative Conference in Social Media: Conference USA

Conference USA is a league that is constantly changing. Members of the league joined the Big East to play BCS ball only to see that league split off into the American. Whoops. Now, Conference USA is filled with teams that were once in the Sun Belt, so educating people on who is a member is a challenge. Conference USA tackled that with this awesome graphic on their Facebook banner that showed who was playing where in the bowl season. Conference USA, the more you know.

To non football fans it looks like Captain Jack Sparrow and a green "T" are going deep.

To non football fans it looks like Captain Jack Sparrow and a green “T” are going deep.

Best Interview on Social Media: Marist Red Fox Mascot “Shooter”

Elizabeth Sim had the honor of showcasing the excitement around the women’s basketball team at Marist and did that and then some with her interview of the school’s mascot. If you can watch her interview starting at 1:35 mark just once then you’re since of humor needs checking.

 

Best Selfie in College Sports Social Media: Nicole Auerbach @NicoleAuerbach

As a writer for USA Today, Auerbach enjoys the pleasure of sitting courtside to some of the biggest games in college basketball. That is great in every venue except at Cameron Indoor as she snapped this selfie at a Duke game.

Shows the passion of college basketball for Duke fans and some of the pitfalls of being a college basketball writer for a national publication.

Best Female Sports Personality to Follow on Twitter: Samantha Ponder @sam_ponder

Auerbach was close but I had to give it to Ponder. Ponder replaced Erin Andrews on College Gameday a few years back and has been an internet darling ever since but that’s not why I find her to be the best follow on Twitter.

While listening to a Christian radio station in my car I almost had to pull over once the disc jockey started quoting Samantha Ponder’s blog post on being happy with yourself.

Name another female sports media personality that was quoted on Christian radio? She’s like the Tim Tebow of female sideline reporters at this point.

Ponder is also great at poking fun of herself or her husband, NFL quarterback Christian Ponder, on Twitter. She was able to tie M.A.S.H with marital counseling for this funny.

Best Male Sports Personality to Follow on Twitter: Pat Forde @YahooForde

Pat Forde is the only guy that’s covering college football and college basketball equally. Most others focus on one. This makes him a must follow for anyone that loves both sports. Plus, he is amazing at making fun of life in the press box. Take a look at this tweet during the BCS National Championship Game.

Best Celebration Photo: Duke Women’s Golf

The Duke women’s golf team took to the air to celebrate their national championship.
While most celebration photos are basic team huddles behind a banner and the trophy, this photo of the Duke women is hard to forget. Who cares if they took 10 shots to get it right?

Wait, are the Blue Devils are reaching out to heaven?

Wait, are the Blue Devils are reaching out to heaven?

Tweet of the Year: Stanford Press Conference

Anytime a college sports team tries to act like a nerd after a big win it is awesome in my book. Congratulations to the Stanford football team for making nerds everywhere proud and for David Lombardi for his tweet.

Worst Tweet of the Year: South Florida

South Florida should be praised for retweeting a lot of its fans during games but I’m afraid USF should have checked the user name before retweeting this one. I blocked out the third letter myself for the kids out there.

Never retweet without thinking, unless it's my account.

Never retweet without thinking, unless it’s my account.

The retweet was deleted but not before I got the screen shot. Go Bulls! I guess?

Michigan Football and Geometry

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How can a team with a top 5 helmet lose to a team with a bottom 5 helmet?

How can a team with a top 5 helmet lose to a team with a bottom 5 helmet?

College football Saturday night was a chain reaction of explosions that rocked the top 25 as multiple unbeaten teams went down. The craziest moments all occurred in a half hour window of two undefeated teams (Stanford and Michigan) while the defending Heisman Trophy winner (Johnny Manziel) left his game due to injury.

Manziel would return as his Texas A&M Aggies survived at Ole Miss. No. 5 Stanford would lose to Utah 27-21 crippling its title hopes. But the best game came at Penn State where Michigan choked away, I mean was defeated for the first time this season in four overtimes 43-30.

Michigan was nursing a 34-27 lead late in the fourth and had a 3rd and 9 at Penn State’s 27 yard line. The Wolverines want to kill clock but also needed to score a field goal to make it a two possession game and put the contest to bed. Michigan took a delay of game penalty pushing it out of field goal range. After a punt Penn State got the ball back with at its 20 with 50 seconds to play only needing a touchdown. The rest is history as Penn State would score to tie it sending the game into the first of its four overtimes. The penalty was not intentional but not snapping the ball before the play clock expires is insane in that situation.

The poor play calling would continue into the overtimes where Michigan was ultraconservative. Twice, Michigan only needed a field goal to win the game but made no effort to advance the ball. All the Wolverines did was run the ball to position the kick in the middle of the field. The first attempt was blocked and the second one was missed. Instead of trying to make the kick shorter the Wolverines focused on the angle like an obsessed Geometry major. The result was over 100,000 Nittany Lions fans leaving the stadium happy.Sensor Scans

I love Michigan’s Coach Brady Hoke, but simple decisions made by him and his staff killed the game. Why make things harder on your kicker intentionally? Why give Penn State the ball back by taking a delay of game penalty?

Way to go Missouri!
Remember how SEC fans thought Missouri had no business being in the conference. Yeah I was one of those. Now Missouri is in the driver seat in the SEC East after winning at the infirmary known as the Georgia Bulldogs. Not to boast but we kind of saw this coming.

The sad state of the AAC
The newly named American Athletic Conference that should really be called the “Zombie Big East” is struggling more than NBC’s ratings. Louisville is the only ranked team and it’s departing to the ACC next year. Houston is undefeated but has played nothing but senior citizens who are decent at Wii Sports. Somehow, South Florida is 2-0 in conference action despite losing to the FCS McNeese State and Sun Belt doormat Florida Atlantic. That means it is still possible South Florida (No. 115 Sagarin Ranking) could make it to a BCS game this year. A win at No. 8 Louisville on Oct. 26 and it just might happen. Happy Halloween everyone!

Pillow fight of the year
UMass got its first win of the year Saturday defeating 0-6 Miami University 17-10. The two teams combined for five turnovers and Miami went and inept 1-11 on third down conversions. Even with the win UMass only moved up to No. 165 in Sagarin with Miami at No. 189. The latter being next to worse among FBS teams.

Twitter fun
Michigan was not the only team to lose in multiple OTs as Murray State dropped a tough one to Southeast Missouri State in FCS action 37-34. Murray State has the resorted itself to the shameless marketing strategy of giving away free food and plugging sponsors to put fans in the seats. Welcome to life in the FCS.

Idaho was humbled at Arkansas State 48-24 Saturday making it tough to tweet anything good for Idaho. So what did the Vandals do? Say you lost to a superior SEC school instead of a crappy Sun Belt team.

Georgia State, the lowest ranked FBS team in Sagarin, played better at home Saturday against Troy State. The Panthers lost 35-28 but gave their fan base hope. When you’re as bad as the Panthers, hope can go to your head, including the athletics’ Twitter account. This tweet in the fourth quarter is our depressing tweet of the week.

Talk about hope for the hopeless. When PR people are tweeting the defense to get a turnover it is pretty much over.