It can be tough for college football coaches to keep an eye on their players’ behavior on Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and countless other social media platforms. Texas Tech head coach Kliff Kingsbury handles the problem by having his assistants create fake accounts to spy on them.
“We have fake accounts with cute girls that they add right now, so we can see what’s going on and who’s tweeting what,” he revealed on “the Hawkcast” podcast with NFL player A.J. Hawk. “Those are heavily monitored, for sure.”
Lest you find yourself overly concerned this might lead to some kind of Manti Te’o situation, wherein one of these young men might become besotted by one of these assistants-posing-as-cute-coeds, Kingsbury also knows his players aren’t total idiots, and are likely aware of the true nature of these “cute” connections.
“I think they do, but they can’t resist that. A friend request from a cute girl is an automatic follow,” Kingsbury said with a laugh.
Kingsbury, who at a mere 36 years old brings to mind the idea of casting Ryan Gosling in a “Friday Night Lights” sequel, might have more than the usual reason to keep a close eye on the players under his tutelage.
The Texas Tech coach was one of the men who helped turn Johnny “Johnny Football” Manziel into a good enough quarterback at Texas A&M to be a first-round draft pick for the Cleveland Browns in 2014, as QB coach and offensive coordinator at Texas A&M.
Kingsbury only coached Manziel for the 2011 season, before decamping to Texas Tech for the head coaching job in 2012, but the experience likely made a lasting impression, given Manziel’s troubles, Twitter-based and otherwise, later in his college career.