It is one of the newest tools for college football fans. It is also one of the newest concerns for college football programs.
For Northwestern football players and coaches, Tuesday morning marks the first day of full practice for the week.
At 8:30 a.m. this past Tuesday, 121 Wildcats’ fans had a different destination: the Wildcat Report football message board on Rivals.com.
“I’m excited about that,” junior quarterback C.J. Bacher said. “It’s a huge game for us this week, and I think a lot of the fans know that. We’re happy to see a lot of excitement surrounding this program.”
But when does excitement turn into mayhem?
Wildcat Report is NU’s largest football message board. For $9.95 a month, Cats’ fans can connect with other purple-pride bearers, along with receiving information on future recruiting classes.
Over the Cats’ three-game winning streak, users on message boards during the game ranged from 100 to 200 individuals. While that number barely eclipses NU’s team roster of 102 players, the openness of the Internet has message boards in the rear-view mirror of many teams.
“As players and coaches, you can only control what’s in your realm as a team,” fifth-year senior linebacker Adam Kadela said. “You can only control what you have going on.”
FRESH EXPECTATIONS
For an incoming freshman, message boards may be the first place a recruit looks.
Bacher entered Randy Walker’s 2004 recruiting class knowing several opinions about his play before he even took the field.
According to Rivals, he ranked 14th nationally among dual-threat quarterbacks – those with a solid arm who can also showcase their legs. His recruitment rating was three stars out of a possible five. His 5.6 player rating deemed him an All-Region selection: a high-to-mid major prospect capable of making an impact on a college team and having pro potential.
It offered grounding in what would become a competitive, adversity-filled, three-year trek to the job of NU’s starting quarterback.
“When I was getting recruited here, you knew the label everyone was coming in with,” Bacher said. “You knew how high people were being recruited.”
As teams scramble to compile their rosters against the efforts of other schools, competition is likely among players battling for spots.
Junior wide receiver Ross Lane entered the Cats’ camp as a two-star recruit, one star below fellow incoming classmate and wide receiver Eric Peterman, who played quarterback in high school. This season, Lane and Peterman are the Cats’ top receivers – 82 catches for 1004 yards, and eight touchdowns combined. Lane has six of those touchdowns.
Lane said he does not read message boards, nor did he ever an interest in reading them, preferring the opportunity to make an impression live with a team.
“Being able to see a player is one thing but just hearing a bunch of talk about players?” Lane said. “I think the ratings are political and I don’t know how accurate they are at all.”
While Bacher said he looked at the boards before he got to school, he doesn’t read them now, trying to “stay away from that kind of stuff.” But as the recruiting process begins earlier and earlier, high school prospects have become even more of a focus on the boards since Bacher’s days leading up to college four years ago. Three recruits are currently highlighted on Wildcat Report, in anticipation of their decision on a school being made.
Kadela, a three-star recruit in ’03, said his attitude toward the message boards is more cynical after five years of experience in a college program. But for the new guys, he knows the temptation.
“You’re about to go into college football,” Kadela said. “When you’re a young guy, it’s exciting to read that stuff before you come in. It gives you an idea of what to expect.”
But Kadela cautioned younger players against paying too much attention to it. He labeled Cats’ veterans as giving little credit to accolades given before arriving to Evanston.
“If guys start reading that stuff and get these attitudes that they’re awesome, they’re in for a rude awakening when they get into a college football program,” Kadela said. “It’s a big difference from high school. When you come in, you’ll be put in your place.”
Wide receivers coach Kevin Johns said his staff has almost no involvement with message boards. Johns has served as the team’s recruiting coordinator since July 2006 and is responsible for areas spanning 12 different states.
“Very little,” Johns said of his familiarity with message boards. “Very, very little. I’m not very familiar with them, because I don’t pay attention to them.”
SECURITY CONCERNS
Guards patrolling fields holding walkie-talkies. Front gate attendants armed with lists of approved names. Players unavailable for interviews.
With the far reach and open access that Internet message boards offer, college football programs are responding with the exact opposite response.
Closed doors.
While some of the drills and workouts may seem like boot camp to NU players, the level of accessibility at college football practices around the country has increasingly resembled a war zone. The fear? Leaking important information to an invalid source.
“It’s dumb on the part of fans if they post important information that can be picked up by another team,” Kadela said. “That’s something that I know coaches are probably paranoid about.”
Injuries are a prime example. NU head coach Pat Fitzgerald kept responses short on junior running back Tyrell Sutton for five weeks, saying little about Sutton’s high ankle sprain beyond the “week-to-week” status.
Other coaches have followed the same script. LSU head coach Les Miles was criticized last month for holding a “deceptive” injury report policy, after starting quarterback Matt Flynn sat out against Middle Tennessee State with a high ankle sprain. A local newspaper relied on Flynn’s father, Alvin, rather than Miles as a source.
“Don’t get me wrong, I know the answers,” Miles told the Shreveport Times on Sept. 18. “I mean I can tell you exactly what’s wrong. But I choose not to, and I’m honest when I say I’m deceptive. I’m supposed to be.”
While guidelines are in place to position the team away from slips of the tongue, Kadela said Fitzgerald advises his players periodically to remain away from conversation with potential posters on message boards.
“You’re in the program,” Kadela said. “Why would you listen to an outsider?”
SLIP OF THE TONGUE
Despite NU’s hands-off policy on message boards, the same standard may not exist for other teams. That is where the outsider comes into play – a force that Lane believes teams only have themselves to blame for letting participate.
“If you’re putting it on a public Web page, then what do you expect?,” Lane said. “If you try to be a tight-knit football team, then you keep it to yourself. You don’t have people spewing it on the Web.”
According to Bacher, Cats’ coaches use other parties to scan opponents’ message boards for potential information on practice and injuries.
It is a task he said the team and coaches are distant from until the final stages of game preparation.
“We get the last part of the process,” Bacher said. “We’re not in the process of looking through the message boards to find it. We’re more just finding out information that might be from it.”
That information is an element of preparation that Johns was unaware of. When asked about the process Bacher alluded to, Johns’ again said he had little knowledge of the element in NU’s preparation.
“I don’t have a lot of knowledge to that because I pay so little attention to it,” Johns said. “Whatever C.J. told you, I’m not familiar with it. I never really check them out.”
FAN INFLUENCE?
Fans are well aware of Johns’ role for NU beyond his duties with the team’s wide receivers. With the help of message boards, they are letting their thoughts be known.
At
2:04 p.m. last Friday, NU was on its way to Detroit, preparing for the Eastern Michigan game at Ford Field. Several message board users were already looking to the future.
User “montana_cat” posted a thread entitled: “How do you bring a potential FB recruit to the attention of the program?”
“Saw a write-up about this kid and said, hmm, sure would be nice to send a Montana kid to NU,” the poster wrote. “Most of our top Division I-A prospects end up in the Pac-10 …”
Eleven minutes later, he had his answer from another member who gave the e-mail address of coach Johns, informing thread readers that Johns is the team’s recruiting coordinator.
Fifteen minutes after that, a third user had a further piece of advice.
“Post a write-up of the kid on this board, complete with contact number and link to game tapes, and wait for our coaching staff to read it here.”
For five days, the thread went silent. But by Friday morning, Johns could look no further than his inbox, as the fans had not forgotten the discussion. A little after 7 a.m., a fourth user posted a follow-up.
“Montana cat, did you ever get a response from the NU football office? I finally broke down and sent an e-mail to coach Johns yesterday with the names of a few kids I think they should be going after and I was wondering if I should be expecting a reply.”
Reach Chris Gentilviso at c-gentilviso@northwestern.edu.