Photo below is from O’s Twitter (sounds Tebowishly homo):


http://twitter.com/Coach_O

For those who understand and care about Twitter, read this:

FAYETTEVILLE – Tennessee Coach Lane Kiffin doesn’t know if Twittering is a recruiting advantage, but he’s not taking any chances.

Kiffin opened a Twitter account recently after learning Georgia Coach Mark Richt had one.

“To me, it’s more one of those things that you don’t want anyone doing anything that you’re not,” Kiffin said. “Reading that Coach Richt had started that and had one, we just wanted to make sure that there wasn’t anything that could possibly be a benefit that we weren’t doing.

“I don’t know that it really helps you that much in recruiting. But if it does, we’re trying.”

Arkansas Coach Bobby Petrino said he has a Twitter account set up by Kevin Trainor, the UA’s associate athletic director for communications and media relations.

“Kevin set it up to make sure nobody else did,” Petrino said. “But he didn’t tell me the password and, what else? There’s something else you have to know. I don’t know the codes.”

Petrino added he’s not familiar with the technology.

“What is Twittering?” he said. “What exactly do you do?”

Twitter, Inc., founded in 2006 and headquartered in San Francisco, is a free social networking and micro-blogging service. Users are allowed to send and read other users’ updates, known as “tweets,” in text-message posts of up to 140 characters.

NCAA rules prohibit coaches from text-messaging recruits directly or posting messages aimed at a specific recruit, but anyone can sign up for a Twitter account and receive updates from a coach regarding the team in general or other topics.

Many coaches who Twitter – and the growing list includes Southern California’s Pete Carroll and Michigan’s Rich Rodriguez – have an administrative assistant who handles it.

“I have somebody that runs that for me, that communicates with me on a daily basis,” Kiffin said. “It’s just another method of getting out there and letting our fan base or recruits know what we’re doing and what’s going on with our program.”

Some of Kiffin’s tweets, according to the Knoxville News-Sentinel, included messages promoting the Volunteers’ spring game, noting that assistant Ed Orgeron had a six-hour recruiting meeting and comments on the weather.

LSU Coach Les Miles laughed long and hard when asked about Twittering on the SEC coaches’ spring teleconference and called it “hilarious,” but then said he needs to start doing it.

“To be very honest, I have not Twittered yet,” Miles said. “I think ‘old school’ would be something that people call me. But I think they also would say I need and have the want-to to be on the fast edge when it comes to communicating with our prospects, our supporters and our fan base.

“So, yeah, I’m going to try to tweet. What a great name, huh?”

Richt said his assistant director of football operations sends his tweets after the two discuss topics.

“It’s just a way to give information to people about what’s going on at Georgia, and not just football,” Richt said. “We talk a lot about our other sports and congratulate those teams and wish them luck when they play.”

Richt said fans attending Georgia’s spring game brought more than 12,000 pounds of items to be donated to a local food bank after being encouraged to do so in one of his tweets.

“I don’t know if Twitter is really that big of a deal,” Richt said. “I think it’s more for your Georgia fan that enjoys trying to keep up with what’s going on in my life and in our football program.”

Kentucky Coach Rich Brooks, the SEC’s oldest coach at 67, said he has no plans to Twitter. He said it’s tough to do much communicating in 140 or fewer characters.

“I don’t think it’s much better than e-mails or phone calls,” Brooks said. “Certainly it’s the latest craze and hottest item on the horizon at this point.

“Probably six months to a year from now, we’ll be talking about something else replacing Twitter.”

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