West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez is taking a firm stance against one specific social media practice.
Rodriguez said Monday that he is banning his West Virginia players from posting dancing videos on TikTok. The Mountaineers coach accepted that players will be active on the platform, but thinks the dancing undermines the “hard edge” he wants his program to portray.
“They’re going to be on it, so I’m not banning them from it,” Rodriguez said, via The Associated Press. “I’m just banning them from dancing on it. It’s like, look, we try to have a hard edge or whatever, and you’re in there in your tights dancing on TikTok ain’t quite the image of our program that I want.
“I’m allowed to do that. I can have rules. Twenty years from now, if they want to be sitting in their pajamas in the basement eating Cheetos and watching TikTok or whatever the hell, they can go at it, smoking cannabis, whatever. Knock yourself out. I hope our focus can be on winning football games. How about let’s win the football game and not worry about winning the TikTok?”
Plenty of star players have shared video of themselves doing TikTok dances, so Rodriguez’s stance is definitely against the current in college football. It might hurt his standing with some recruits, but the coach is correct that it is his program and he has the right to lay down this sort of rule if he wants to.
Some coaches have embraced the sort of thing Rodriguez is trying to put a stop to, which has led to some very awkward results. Clearly, Rodriguez will not be taking part in anything like that, either.
Rodriguez is back at West Virginia after a highly successful stint there nearly two decades ago. His old-school stance might not endear him to critics of his hiring, but he is unlikely to care about that either.
