Don’t Tweet At Recruits: A National Signing Day PSA

Hello, person with a Twitter account! Noel from Black Shoe Diaries here, I hope all is well with you.

We’re putting together a little explainer because today is National Signing Day, which means that a group of college students are going to finalize their college choices. Unlike you, it was determined not by their SAT score, but by their ability to play football. This is a huge day for them, and for the schools that will pick up their commitments. This is the biggest decision they will have made in their young lives, and they are doing it with more pressure than anyone else on the planet save for maybe Malia Obama (there's a spot in Schreyer waiting for you, M.O.).

Despite this, some keyboard warriors are going to take to Twitter dot com and make it a point to express their discontent about this decision being made by children. They’ll do things like say they are not "[insert school] material" or that they made a bad decision. There will also be lots of hashtags. The only people who hashtag more than recruit tweeters are brands and spambots. It is one of the greatest causes of secondhand embarrassment in college football, which is really saying something when you consider it is a game that exists so people can profiteer off of unpaid child labor.

Inevitably, of course, some Cheeto dust-huffing putz is going to tweet some awful stuff to a child who decided he wanted to play handegg at a different academic institution. He's going to get enraged at the choice of school of someone who hasn't even attended senior prom, because the internet affords that ability with minimal repercussion.

Think about how sad you have to be to do that. You're harassing a teen on the internet because he liked another school more than the one you like. You should really pick up a hobby. Start watching Rick and Morty. Learn to julienne cut carrots. Adopt a pet guinea pig. Anything. Just don't tweet mean-spirited shit at high school football players about where they should do sports.

Some people will say it's passion, or that recruits want to hear from fans. I can assure you, there are plenty of ways to funnel your passion that don't involve sending university-based love letters in 140 character increments to someone who may not have a driver's license yet. I can also assure you that no player wants people constantly bugging them, telling them where they should go, tagging them in random news tidbits, and trying to get them to change their minds. They have enough to think about without @ProudAlum chiming in every ten seconds to extol the virtues of their favorite on-campus dining hall.

This National Signing Day, let's try and make the college football recruiting world a little less gross (drops in the bucket, I know). And remember, when in doubt simply follow rule one of Twitter: never tweet.