In this week’s installment of Sunday Social we continue last week’s theme of Coaches Behaving Badly and we get a warm start to the college football season. As always, we’ll always look for the wittiest and most clever comments on social media.
Sunday Social, August 30th, 2015: The Stitt Happening Around College Football
Last week’s major theme was Coaches Behaving Badly with Art Briles and Steve Sarkisian taking up a large portion of the ledes all week long. This week, Illinois head coach Tim Beckman was fired a week before the start of the season for pressuring injured players to continue playing through their injuries.
Of course, what would bad news for a program be without some ribbing from rival fan bases. Some Northwestern fans quickly chimed in with some thoughts on the Illinois head coaching search.
https://twitter.com/wildcat_fandom/status/637999537156521984
Beckman was very critical of Illinois media coverage at Big 10 media days. Sometimes, you need to take a step back to take a step forward as this bad announcer points out:
Tim Beckman may get his wish for the media to be more supportive of Illinois football… now that he’s been fired. http://t.co/eaenENldA9
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) August 28, 2015
And our own @LastWordJack pointed out the real irony in the mistreatment of players at Illinois:
Most amazing thing about firing Illinois football coach Tim Beckman is that his harsh methods didn't help record!
— Jack Moon Perrin 🇱🇷 (@LastWordJack) August 30, 2015
And on a very serious note, SB Nation pointed out the changing power demographics in college sports…are the players getting more powerful even without being allowed to unionize?
Tim Beckman's abrupt firing indicates a power shift towards student-athletes http://t.co/JdVgva314J
— SB Nation College (@sbncollege) August 29, 2015
As Illinois fans are recovering from the Beckman news, the FCS provided college football fans with a warm-start to the 2015 season with an excellent North Dakota-Montana match-up on Saturday.
The star of this show was new Montana head coach Bob Stitt, at least according to eminent college football guru Bruce Feldman:
For one day, Bob Stitt was the king of the entire college football world, and it was pretty friggin awesome: http://t.co/ncw3dqLfCP
— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) August 30, 2015
What’s better, beating the four-time defending FCS champions North Dakota, or getting a hashtag with your name in it (#StittHappens) to trend nationally? Either way, the game was a worthy prologue to what promises to be a great college season. Everyone’s favorite homer seems to agree:
Stitt happened. I hope that game is a sign of things to come this season. Fun start to the season.
— Barrett Sallee 🇺🇸 (@BarrettSallee) August 29, 2015
Can Montana hope to keep Stitt for very long if his offense continues to shine? @RealMikeWelch sees Stitt cashing in at some point.
https://twitter.com/realmikewelch/status/637765547132743680
And of course Bob Stitt wasn’t the only highlight of the game. Announcing legend and real American Hero Brent Musburger was on the call (He’s also from Montana). @talkinACCsports aptly points out:
Brent Musburger hasn't lost much off his fastball… Still calls the game pretty well. Giving this NDSU Montana game a bigtime feel.
— Jeff or Jeffrey Fann (@TalkinACCSports) August 29, 2015
I assure you his fastball isn’t the only thing he hasn’t lost, my friend. Musburger might just be the GOAT.
With the season already underway, we look forward to some great in-game comentary and memes next weekend. This UCLA fan sums up the expectations quite nicely:
https://twitter.com/carlosonucla/status/635835504198467584
We’ll be listening to all of the conversations on the social platforms and will bring you the best each week here on our Sunday Social feature.
Until next Sunday, stay salty my friends.
COLUMBUS, OH – NOVEMBER 1: Head coach Tim Beckman of the Illinois Fighting Illini gets ready to lead his team to the field before the game against the Ohio State Buckeyes at Ohio Stadium on November 1, 2014 in Columbus, Ohio. The Buckeyes defeated the Illini 55-14. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images)
