Leach mum on Carter suspension, opens up about Twitter
By Alex Ybarra/Managing Editor/Daily Toreador
During Monday’s weekly press conference, the first question fielded by Texas Tech coach Mike Leach was about the recent indefinite suspension of star-lineman Brandon Carter, which wasn’t a surprise.
But Leach — who at times makes it hard to tell if he’s joking or not — said he actually pondered whether to break his protocol of keeping football issues private and spill the facts on exactly why Carter was suspended.
“I woke up this morning, I thought, ‘For 10 years, I’ve never talked about any internal issues or anything like that.’ But I said, ‘You know what? Today, maybe I ought to. Maybe this’ll be the day that I’ll tell all the details,’” he said. “I’ll say all the stuff. I’ll mention quotations. I’ll say what was said. Then I said, ‘That’s exactly what I’m gonna do.’ And son of a gun, right before I walked in that door, I didn’t change my mind.”
Therefore, it’s still unclear why Leach benched one of the best linemen in the Big 12 Conference.
However, one thing is certain.
“Twitter has lost a little bit of business as a result of me,” said Leach, who said his players will no longer have Twitter accounts after Sunday’s fallout regarding the social networking site.
After the 29-28 loss to Houston on Saturday gave Tech its first back-to-back losses since 2007, Carter tweeted that this wasn’t how he envisioned his final season and that he felt like he let the team down. Then on Sunday, another tweet from Carter informed followers of his demotion.
“I am not a captain anymore and will not be playing this week,” the tweet read. “Good luck red raiders ill still be cheering on my family from the stands!!:).”
Also, senior linebacker Marlon Williams had a post on his Twitter account on Sunday calling out Leach for being late to a meeting.
Both accounts no longer are active.
Leach said there hasn’t been a policy in place prior to the incidents and that he wasn’t too aware of what was being said through the Web site, adding that “little twitter things that relate to football is a violation of team rules.”
He called Twitter and anything that is a distraction “stupid,” citing that college football players don’t need any more attention than they already receive.
“I’m not gonna sit around with a bunch of narcissists that want to sit and type stuff about themselves all the time,” he said. “We’ll put mirrors in some of their lockers if that’s necessary, but they don’t have to Twitter.”
Leach said he “saw this coming,” referring to players use of Twitter, after seeing how the National Football League has adapted to the popular site.
Someone or some group from the team will monitor Facebook for any kind of football information, Leach said, and action will be taken if anything is found.
But he was mum, once again, on whose task that will be.
“That’s a committee that’s very secret and the names of those people are in a vault deep in the bowels of our training center, which even the entrance to that is highly classified,” he said tongue-in-cheek. “We’ve had several people die over that sort of thing. We’ve killed all of them. I think even that’s dangerous to even talk about really.”
Full story here.
I agree with most of what Leach has to say about Twitter. In my short span as a big time SID in Mexico I counciled athletes not to discuss team business on social networking sites. Its quite possibly the worst thing a player can do. Its one thing to address issues with the media. At least when T.O. blasts his QBs to the press I think some part of him hopes it will result in a better offense. When you blast your team/teammates/coach on Twitter, you're just venting your own frustration.
That said I think Leach should have some accountability to his fans. He wants to soak up all the positive "genious pirate" praise but he keeps his program walled off to Tech beat writers and essentially the city of Lubbock. He better hope he never gets a high profile job because ESPN would be in his ass about this all week instead of just giving it 45 seconds of play on Tuesday's 'College Football Live'.
P.S. - I like his slams about Carter being egotistical. I have no knowledge of what Brandon Carter is like, but isn't this the same kind of stuff Leach used to say about Crabtree until he went pro and Leach became his knight in shining armor? Here's a thought. If you don't like prima donnas then stop recruiting them.
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