Thursday, February 11, 2016

Be Careful In 140 Characters Or Less


While chasing down recruiting information the past couple of months I spent a lot of time on the Twitter accounts of current Dartmouth and Ivy League football players as well as potential Ivy League football recruits. Given that I saw way too much that made me shudder I'm thinking the time has come for my annual reminder about the dangers of Tweeting without thinking.

Guys, be careful. Remember that your family, your teachers, your coaches, admissions directors, journalists and potential future employers can see what you write and will form opinions about you based on what they read. Everything you worked for can be jeopardized by 140 characters tapped out on your phone without thinking about how it will be perceived. And keep this very important thing in mind: Even when you retweet something distasteful that someone else said, YOU own it.
Incoming wide receiver Hunter Hagdorn is one of 13 players from Manvel High School in Texas who formalized their college commitments last week. While Hagdorn chose Dartmouth over several big-time offers, no fewer than 10 of his teammates are going on to FBS schools, with two each to Mississippi and Houston, and one each to Texas, TCU, Indiana, SMU, Memphis and New Mexico State. The Houston Chronicle has the story about a remarkable yield from one high school's senior class.
The Yale Daily has a story about football recruiting classes that includes the following, along with a chart of top recruits for each school:
Yale headlined not only the Ivy League but also the entire FCS, according to the 247Sports Composite Team Rankings. Columbia came in the No. 2 spot, and Harvard was at No. 5. In another review of FCS recruiting classes, Brian McLaughlin of HERO Sports ranked Yale at No. 2, Harvard at No. 8 and Columbia at No. 18.
Green Alert Take: Given that the Ivy League doesn't recognize the Letter of Intent and no school has released its full recruiting classes this is nothing more than silly season speculation. It's fun to talk about but it's absolutely meaningless. Having followed Ivy League recruiting with BGA for more than a decade I am here to tell you that when it comes to the Ivy League, and rating Ivy League football recruits, the so-called recruiting services are clueless.