In an amazing act of foresight, Michigan head coach Brady Hoke "catfished" his team this season just before the Manti Te'o dead girlfriend hoax story came out.
According to Yahoo Sports, Hoke spoke with state high school football coaches in Kalamazoo at a meeting and described to them some situations involving players and social media and how rthe team "catfished" its own players to prove a point.
According to the report, the school hired an outside consultant to speak with the team about social media responsibility, but Hoke wanted some real-life situations to play a part, so the team put together an interesting idea. They set up their own players.
"Before he came in, we gave him 20 Facebook accounts of guys on our team," coach Brady Hoke said earlier this month while speaking with hundreds of the state's high school football coaches. "He had his assistant -- she tried to talk to our guys. 'Hey, what are ya doin'?' Whatever it might be.
"Well, two months later we're in a team meeting and we're on the topic of what you put out there in the cyber universe ... you should have seen 115 guys when that young lady -- she was hot, now; a very, very nice looking young lady -- when she walked into that meeting room, and the guys looking at each other.
"Because some of them didn't use their heads when communicating back and forth with that young lady."
Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon said Friday that some of the responses to the young lady were not "wholly appropriate."
The whole idea takes on a new meaning due to the Manti Te'o situation, but it also shows how smart Hoke is considering the news about the dead girlfriend hoax had yet to go public. The Manti Te'o situation, for the uninformed, was a Deadspin report that was released claiming Te'o's girlfriend - Lennay Kekua - to be a fraud.
It was proven later that Kekua was actually a hoax created by Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, a man who said he was in love with Te'o. Tuiasosopo fabricated Kekua's voice using his dramatic voice training and then killed her off in September. All of it was a lie. The whole situation made what Michigan did even more pertinent to its team and the players on the roster.
Hoke said Michigan's players learned from the whole situation.
"The tweeting deal, I still don't understand, to be honest with ya, and the different things the guys will do," Hoke said. "But, my point is this: Be aware of it. Watch what your kids are doing."
