Coach’s Twitter Rant Costs A&M At Least Three Recruits
Texas A&M wide receivers coach Aaron Moorehead was trying to teach a lesson about loyalty, but the coach’s rant cost Texas A&M at least three recruits. The coach’s rant about recruits honoring their word appears to be even worse news because the school doesn’t yet know the costs. What Texas A&M does know is it lost one of its top-rated quarterbacks, and some other recruits decided the Aggies weren’t the team they wanted to play for after all. One has to wonder whether Aaron Moorehead is eventually going to learn you have to keep your temper in check on Twitter if you want to keep your job.
Aaron Moorehead has posted an apology to HS players, Kevin Sumlin and A&M fans: https://t.co/aGUjWk0Ain
— CoachingSearch.com (@coachingsearch) May 5, 2016
Recruiting is a tricky business these days, and almost anything can change the trajectory of a school’s chances of landing a player. A coach’s rant can cost a school big time, precisely because social media isn’t a vacuum. Aaron Moorehead might have wanted his little speech to go towards one player, and instead, it spread across the country. Moorehead’s problem began when he sent out a tweet saying he felt sorry for people who don’t understand loyalty.
The Texas A&M coach apparently almost immediately began to get backlash because he started to try and explain while still looking quite defensive. The issue seems to have started after five-star quarterback recruit Tate Martell announced he was going to open his recruiting back up, according to the Los Angeles Times. Shortly after people saw the connection, Aaron Moorehead attempted to claim he wasn’t talking about the Martell announcement even while he used some hashtags that made it clear his tweets were at the very least relevant to the situation.
The coach’s Twitter rant’s costs to Texas A&M then started to balloon as other kids who were considering the Aggies suddenly decided they weren’t all that excited about playing for a coach like Aaron Moorehead. For his part, the wide receiver’s coach took on all comers who had a problem with what he had to say. At one point it seemed as if the Texas A&M coach didn’t realize he was getting attention from people he wouldn’t like to see him acting that way.
After a few more tweets that seemed to be more trolling than talking, wide receiver Mannie Netherly, another commit for Texas A&M, announced he was de-committing. Just in case there was any confusion, Netherly made it clear the reason he wasn’t going to Texas A&M anymore was that he didn’t want to play for a man like Aaron Moorehead.
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— Mannie. (@yovng_netherly) May 5, 2016
Shortly after that announcement, yet another player, this time, someone Aaron Moorehead had been trying to lure to the school, announced he was going to look elsewhere. Tylon Lindsey, a five-star wide receiver recruit who was looking at Texas A&M along with high school classmate Tate Martell, made it clear he was no longer considering Texas A&M because of the way Aaron Moorehead had behaved on Twitter. All in all, it was a bad night for Aaron Moorehead and the Texas A&M football team. It seems as if Moorehead understood this in the light of day as he issued one final tweet. The real question now is whether or not the Texas A&M Aggies are going to show loyalty to coach Moorehead even after the coach’s rant cost the school several recruits.
[Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images]
