West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez was the latest football coach to ban TikTok for his players, at least in or around practice. He wants them to make money playing football, not dancing!
Matt Rhule already made headlines for banning the social media app at Nebraska. And then well, participating in a TikTok dance.
But Rodriguez’s focus is on practice and each individual play, basically like your life depended upon it. There’s no time for filming and dancing at that point!
“I think there’s certainly more obstacles to take guys’ minds off of doing that,” Rodriguez said on Always College Football. “I tell our guys, like, we’re getting ready to have, you know, we just got done practicing, we’re getting ready to have the next play in practice, or next drill, or whatever it is. There’s nothing in your life more important than that next play at that time. Now, obviously, when you’re off the field and practice is over, your family, religion, your health, all that kind of stuff, but in that moment, that next play is your whole world.
“That’s what they see me coach at practice and (people) think I’m half nuts. But I mean, I always treated every play that way, and I’m trying to get my teams and every player to think that way … And so that’s the level of focus, intensity that our guys have to have, but it’s more difficult now. That’s why a lot of folks made a big deal about our guys, me being mad and banning them from dancing on Tiktok.”
In the world of NIL in college athletics, TikTok can actually be advantageous. But Rodriguez would rather his players make money off of football on the field, not being adjacent to the field.
“If they can make money being good at something I want them to make money being good at football,” Rodriguez said. “So I thought let’s get good at football because I don’t think they’ll make money being good at dancing on TikTok, not for what I see.. But if they get really good at football, they can make money now, not just in the NFL now. So that’s kind of what I hope their focus is.”
West Virginia received a lot of buzz bringing Rodriguez back as head coach and the Mountaineers could be a good football team in the Big 12 next season. How they manage TikTok from now until the fall remains to be seen!
