Late last week, I saw a tweet saying that Ohio Bobcats head coach Frank Solich, at 70 years old and going into his 11th season at Ohio, had finally joined Twitter. Whether it's actually run by him, or an intern is irrelevant, Solich has jumped on the Twitter bandwagon in the public eye, which is more important in today's landscape of college football than it has ever been before
That got us to thinking about which head coaches aren't utilizing the power of Twitter? And further, which conferences have the highest (and lowest) percentage of their head coaches on Twitter?
Thanks to Solich's recent decision, the MAC is the only league with 100% of their head coaches on Twitter. Then comes the SEC, whose only head coach without Twitter is Nick Saban (and I don't see that changing anytime soon). After that, basically all the conferences are missing at least two coaches including the American, the ACC, the Big 12, C-USA, Mountain West, Sun Belt and the Pac-12 at two a piece, with the Big Ten missing a trio of coaches. Also worth noting; all three of the head coaches leading independent programs (Notre Dame, Army, BYU) are active on Twitter.
In an era where social media rules everything from recruiting, to connecting with the fan base, to branding for college football programs, here are the head coaches that have resisted the social media push, along with a friendly Twitter handle suggestion if they ever decide to join the rest of us.
For the Twitter handles that I left blank, feel free to shoot me a snazzy suggestion to @CoachSamz and I'll share the best ones in that column.
Other interesting notes I gathered from this research:
- Oldest FBS head coach on Twitter: Frank Solich - @CoachSolich (70 years old)
- Youngest FBS head coach on Twitter: PJ Fleck - @CoachFleck (34 years old)
- Youngest FBS head coach NOT on Twitter: Bob Diaco (42 years old)
- Oldest FBS head coach NOT on Twitter: Bill Snyder (75 years old)
- Longest tenured FBS head coach NOT on Twitter: Virginia Tech's Frank Beamer (hired in December of 1986)
- Shortest tenured FBS head coach NOT on Twitter: Wisconsin's Paul Chryst (hired on December 17 of 2014)
- Conference with the highest number of head coaches on Twitter: Mid-American Conference (13 of 13 -100%) and Independents (4 of 4 - 100%)
- Conference with the lowest percentage of head coaches on Twitter: Big Ten (11 of 14 coaches - 79%)
(A previous version of this post listed Appalachian State's Scott Satterfield. That was incorrect.)