Who's lurking on that message board?
Internet message boards have become popular destinations for rabid college football fans. Visiting and posting on these websites can be addictive for fans who just cannot get enough of their favorite team. (And yes I plead guilty to being one of them.) Information flows very freely on the boards. Some of the posts are pure garbage - a waste of time. At the other end, some of the posts contain very valuable tidbits or insights from insiders that you would never find any place else. And of course, the real "honey" that gets the subscribers to pay for access to these message boards is the most current recruiting information there is any place. A fan can keep up on the latest situation for that stellar recruit and follow how his thinking changes as he visits each school.
One thing many of the posters don't often think about is just who might be lurking on the board as a paid subscriber. It could be just about anybody. It could be coaches from the team trying to get additional insights into what recruits are thinking. It could be athletic department officials trying to monitor what is said about the program and posing as posters to rebut any negative statements. It could be players trying to see what is said about them (and sometimes that can get pretty nasty). It could be potential recruits and their parents trying to assess what the fans are really like and if that's a place they want to spend 4 or 5 years. It could be media writers looking for hot story leads. A particularly interesting post might result in a player or recruit being besieged by media writers wanting interviews. So the point is, it could be just about anybody lurking on the board and what is posted on the board does matter a whole lot more than most posters would think.
In the most extreme situation, you can assume that "spies" for competing schools are monitoring the board as well. They can read all the posts and summarize anything that might be useful to an opposing coaching staff. That could be insights into what is really important to a potential recruit, how they reacted to a recruiting visit or what they're really saying/thinking to others. And that kind of recruiting information could be as good as "gold" to an opposing coach. Of course, they do have to sort through what is fact and what is fiction. During the season, people with connections to the program often post or shed light on the seriousness of injuries to players. That too can provide good input for an opponent's gameplan. Finally, there's the digging for "dirt". Those spies can summarize the negative stuff posted and use it against the school when competing for recruits. Nebraska, for example, often has been the victim of some negative recruiting when opposing schools tell the recruits that the coach is about to be fired or that the fans are making abusive or derogatory statements about some of the current players. A quote from some poster on the board can add a lot of color and apparent authenticity to these negative recruiting tactics.
There really is no control over the message boards. The subscribers can only be screened by whether they've got a credit card and are willing to pay the $X bucks per month fee. They could be fans of any school. There also is nothing to prevent a poster from posting inappropriate information from a private conversation with a player or the relative of a player. If that player made a nasty comment about his coach in confidence, the story very well may wind up on a message board. Some posts do get deleted if they are viewed as particularly detrimental to the program but for the most part it's really like the "wild old west" where almost anything can and does get posted at times.
You can't censor this stuff any more than you could control what fans were saying in bars 20 years ago. The only difference is that the Internet message boards operate a lot faster and there are thousands of people around the world listening into some of those discussions that used to be confined to a few buddies at the bar over a round of drinks. Schools, coaches, players and parents just have to get used to this new "fishbowl" like environment that now exists.
Go Big Red,
RedCap
One thing many of the posters don't often think about is just who might be lurking on the board as a paid subscriber. It could be just about anybody. It could be coaches from the team trying to get additional insights into what recruits are thinking. It could be athletic department officials trying to monitor what is said about the program and posing as posters to rebut any negative statements. It could be players trying to see what is said about them (and sometimes that can get pretty nasty). It could be potential recruits and their parents trying to assess what the fans are really like and if that's a place they want to spend 4 or 5 years. It could be media writers looking for hot story leads. A particularly interesting post might result in a player or recruit being besieged by media writers wanting interviews. So the point is, it could be just about anybody lurking on the board and what is posted on the board does matter a whole lot more than most posters would think.
In the most extreme situation, you can assume that "spies" for competing schools are monitoring the board as well. They can read all the posts and summarize anything that might be useful to an opposing coaching staff. That could be insights into what is really important to a potential recruit, how they reacted to a recruiting visit or what they're really saying/thinking to others. And that kind of recruiting information could be as good as "gold" to an opposing coach. Of course, they do have to sort through what is fact and what is fiction. During the season, people with connections to the program often post or shed light on the seriousness of injuries to players. That too can provide good input for an opponent's gameplan. Finally, there's the digging for "dirt". Those spies can summarize the negative stuff posted and use it against the school when competing for recruits. Nebraska, for example, often has been the victim of some negative recruiting when opposing schools tell the recruits that the coach is about to be fired or that the fans are making abusive or derogatory statements about some of the current players. A quote from some poster on the board can add a lot of color and apparent authenticity to these negative recruiting tactics.
There really is no control over the message boards. The subscribers can only be screened by whether they've got a credit card and are willing to pay the $X bucks per month fee. They could be fans of any school. There also is nothing to prevent a poster from posting inappropriate information from a private conversation with a player or the relative of a player. If that player made a nasty comment about his coach in confidence, the story very well may wind up on a message board. Some posts do get deleted if they are viewed as particularly detrimental to the program but for the most part it's really like the "wild old west" where almost anything can and does get posted at times.
You can't censor this stuff any more than you could control what fans were saying in bars 20 years ago. The only difference is that the Internet message boards operate a lot faster and there are thousands of people around the world listening into some of those discussions that used to be confined to a few buddies at the bar over a round of drinks. Schools, coaches, players and parents just have to get used to this new "fishbowl" like environment that now exists.
Go Big Red,
RedCap
posted by RedCap at 2:59 PM
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