SI

Ranking the 10 Best College Football Coach Bat Signals

P.J. Fleck, Sonny Dykes and James Franklin are among the coaches with creative Twitter messages to fans.

Dan Gartland

In this story:

Some of the stranger NCAA rules (not as strange as the one that once governed schools’ ability to provide cream cheese alongside bagels, though) relate to school employees’ use of social media in recruiting. Coaches, for instance, may like and retweet an athlete’s post announcing that they have committed to a school, thus alerting the coach’s followers to the news, but the coach cannot send an original tweet about the player’s commitment. Weird!

There are ways to get around this, though. Many coaches—particularly the guys in charge of big-time football programs—will send tweets alluding to the fact that they’ve received some big news when a top prospect commits. They can’t mention that Player X has just committed to School Y, but it’s a way to engage the fan base and generate excitement around the program.

Some coaches keep it simple. Oregon’s Dan Lanning just uses a duck emoji, and USC’s Lincoln Riley tweets the emoji version of the Trojans’ “V for victory” symbol. Others show a little more creativity, whether they’ve got a catchphrase or they rely on their school’s media department to create a multimedia element. Here are 10 of the best, with an assist from college football editor Molly Geary, who assembled an exhaustive list of every “bat signal” from a Power 5 coach.

10. Tom Allen (Indiana): #LEO and GIF of himself

Using a GIF of yourself is pretty corny, but this also contains another goofy aspect that is distinctly college football: the team slogan. In this case, #LEO is an acronym for “love each other,” the Hoosiers’ team motto. As slogans go, it’s a pretty good one—better than the fake Abe Lincoln quote the coach used when I covered the football team in college.

9. Jonathan Smith (Oregon State): DAM RIGHT 🦫✔️

Nothing outrageous here, but you have to admire a little mascot-inspired pun.

8. Dino Babers (Syracuse): [a series of orange emojis]

Plenty of coaches use emojis that relate to their schools. (If I got hired at Nebraska, you better believe that I’d use the ear of corn emoji as my bat signal.) But Babers takes it to another level and adds a new orange emoji every time he lands another recruit to his class. Does he take one away when a guy flips, though?

7. Kalen DeBoer (Washington): [a strange GIF that is supposed to be of a husky]

This one is terrible, and I love it. It’s supposed to be an intimidating image of UW’s Husky mascot, combined with a rainfall effect that serves as a nod to Seattle’s wet climate. Instead, the eyes are indistinguishable from any other wild animal, and the special effects make it look like the animal is crying. Swing and a miss by the Washington graphics department, but at least it’s funny.

6. Mack Brown (North Carolina): #JordanClass

Invoking Michael Jordan when referring to the class of 2023 is a no-brainer for UNC, but do 18-year-olds today really care about where their dad’s favorite basketball player went to college?

5. Mario Cristobal (Miami): A GIF of Santana Moss

Real Miami fans have to love that Cristobal goes with a GIF of a prolific, beloved but often overlooked player. Santana Moss didn’t have the NFL success of his college teammate Reggie Wayne, but he’s still the program’s all-time leader in receiving yards.

4. James Franklin (Penn State): A slick school-produced video reference to the “red light”

3. Dave Doeren (NC State): A reference to the “red light.”

Without context, this one is a bit ominous. Bathing the football stadium in red light seems more like a warning than a celebration. In reality, it’s a reference to an NC State tradition. The Memorial Belltower, built to honor alumni killed in World War I, is lit up red on special occasions, including holidays and after wins by the school’s sports teams. Doeren’s bat signal is the epitome of “if you know, you know.”

2. Sonny Dykes (TCU): The Hypnotoad

Dykes came to embrace the Hypnotoad by accident. The psychedelic amphibian comes from the TV show Futurama, and Dykes was first exposed to it during a men’s basketball game on campus shortly after taking over the football program. “It was just weird enough that it appealed to me,” he said earlier this season. “I really thought it was cool.” The image has since become synonymous with the Horned Frogs’ football program. It’s funny to see the 53-year-old Dykes embrace a cartoon meme so wholeheartedly.

1. P.J. Fleck (Minnesota): An actual Bat Signal GIF

There’s layers to this one. First of all, it’s actually a Bat Signal, which is tremendous. The graphics department could have been straightforward with it, using the school logo as the symbol. Instead, they used a stylized version of the Gophers’ #RowWithUs recruiting hashtag that features both an oar and an outline of the state of Minnesota. It’s easy to miss, but the image also features Goldy Gopher standing atop the team’s home stadium, ready to answer the call. Excellent work. 

Published
Dan Gartland
DAN GARTLAND

Dan Gartland is the writer and editor of Sports Illustrated’s flagship daily newsletter, SI:AM, covering everything an educated sports fan needs to know. He joined the SI staff in 2014, having previously been published on Deadspin and Slate. Gartland, a graduate of Fordham University, is a former Sports Jeopardy! champion (Season 1, Episode 5).

Home/Extra Mustard