Texas Football bans Twitter from post-practice interviews

The Tom Herman era of Texas football is under way in Austin. One of his first actions as the head man was to ban social media from post-practice interviews.

Apparently Herman and his staff are trying to return to the ages of legal pads and the Sunday paper. In a release issued by the university, all media that attend post-practice sessions will not be permitted to put those comments on social media, at least not during the interview.

Why? According to the release Texas wants to ensure that the media will “take the time to review your post and re-listen to the questions and answers in an effort to increase accuracy and insure the necessary context in each of your social media reports.”

What’s more likely to happen? A young kid says something that he regrets about a teammate or a reporter tweets out something incorrect? I understand the desire to protect the student athletes as much as possible, but the trade off here is a bit severe. The moment those athletes put on a Longhorn jersey they became superstars on campus. There words carry more weight than the typical college student. That’s just how it is.

Here’s what the full text of the release says:

You don’t have to be a member of the media to find this policy to be ridiculous and overbearing. Tom Herman was hired to coach football, not to tell reporters how to do their jobs. Today’s news cycle revolved around there here and now. Live interviews, breaking news and social media are how people consume information in 2017.

Next: Ranking the top 50 CFB players in 2017

Cutting social media out of the interview process seems all the more dubious when Texas players are on Twitter during the middle of games. Expectations are high in Austin this season. If Herman doesn’t get off to a fast start this will be just one more arrow pointed in his direction. Also, you can tell @CoachTomHerman that I’m tweeting this.