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Bama News
LSU, Clemson Take Opposite Approach to Social Media
While Clemson players go off the grid with posting, LSU players are free to share whenever they want.
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NEW ORLEANS â Modern day athletes have so much to deal with when it comes to fan interaction and blocking out noise. The main culprit, as everybody knows, is social media.
Thatâs one reason why, about seven or eight years ago before Clemson was annually playing for national championships, Clemsonâs senior captains made a rule that all future teams would end up following: no social media during the season. The Tigers go dark on Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, etc., from the start of camp to their last game. Theyâre still allowed to scroll through and keep up with news, but are forbidden from posting any type of content. While coach Dabo Swinney jokes that he gets crucified for intruding on his playersâ First Amendment rights every August, this policy really has nothing to do with him.
âGuys wanted to find a way to turn the program around, so they thought hard about what could help us limit distractions and keep us focused,â senior right tackle Tremayne Anchrum says. âIt doesnât matter what they say about us, what they think about us. It only matters what we think. Itâs a rule thatâs been passed down from team to team. Everybody has honored it, coaches have supported it, and itâs led to a lot of great instances of us not being involved in trash talk.â
Anchrum wonât lie: There have been times heâs wanted to respond or post something. âThatâs just the way this generation is,â he says honestly. He remembers recently a fan tweeting negatively about the offensive line. âI was like, âThatâs stupidâ and I wanted to give them a piece of my mind,â
Anchrum says. âThen I stopped to think how a typical fan doesnât understand everything we do.â
Added Swinney: âI just think the biggest thing about it is, in this world, it eliminates one thing they feel the need to have to do. Itâs not like theyâre not on it, keeping up with the world, but young people today feel like they have to respond to every nut job out there. Itâs the craziest thing. It eliminates the emotion and takes a little pressure off. I donât know, itâs worked fine for us.â
While Clemson goes off the grid, LSUâs approach is the opposite. Players are free to post pretty much whatever they want as long as theyâre smart about it. âWe tell them to be careful, to block out the noise, but thatâs about the extent of it,â coach Ed Orgeron said at national championship media day Saturday. âIâm not going to stop it. We used to have a rule you canât bring a phone into a meeting. If you tell them they canât do something during the season, I think that wouldnât work. But you donât have to worry about me posting during the season.â
While thereâs no strict policy with these Tigers, there has at least been one time when a player tweeted during a game. It was senior offensive lineman Adrian Magee, who famously quote-tweeted a post from former LSU and current Washington Redskins running back Derrius Guice in the middle of the College Football Playoff semifinal against Oklahoma. LSU was leading 49â14 at the break and cruised to a 63â28 win. Magee and his teammates donât normally tweet mid-game, but it isnât abnormal for players to check their phones in the locker room at halftime. âItâs no big deal, really,â Magee says.
Instagram is the first thing that pops up on Mageeâs screen when he unlocks his phone. Posting to Instagram Stories is his favorite platform to use, but he also says he has a couple of back-and-forth streaks going right now on Snapchat.
âIâm an everyday poster,â says Magee, who has 12,500 followers on Instagram. If you think thatâs a lot for a college athlete, Heisman Trophy winning quarterback Joe Burrowâwho is a semi-regular posterâhas more than 450,000.
Most of what LSU players post is harmless, meant to be seen by friends and family. Mageeâs Instagram Story this week shows silly videos of him and his teammates playing Jenga and going bowling; linebacker Jacob Phillipsâs Instagram is a mix of football and hunting; wide receiver JaâMarr Chase likes to caption his action shot posts with music lyrics; and punter Zach Von Rosenberg has been tweeting all week about how excited he is to play in the national championship game.
If posting on social media was forbidden, Von Rosenberg guesses youâd have players creating âfinstasâ or fake Instagram accounts. âWe like to share whatâs going on in our lives to an extent,â he says. âItâs memories for you because you can save what you post for future reference.â Chase was sarcastically enraged when he found out Clemson players didnât have the same social media luxuries as them. âItâs a free world, right?â Chase said.
âWhy not post?â
(Chase also said that he only posts once or twice a month and has deleted all of his appsânot just the social media onesâfor the playoff semifinal and title game.)
Anchrum will probably post something after the title game. Quarterback Trevor Lawrence guesses he will too, but maybe not for a few days. Some Clemson players are totally indifferent, becoming the opposite of their social media obsessed millennial and Gen Z friends.
âIt teaches you to think about what youâre going to say before you post,â says Anchrum, who hopes to carry this habit forward once he leaves Clemson. âAnd you donât have to respond to everything. That need is no longer important.â
