With college football in full swing, there have been several upsets overtaking social media platforms during week two. Several out-of-conference backyard-brawl games have allowed the “underdog” team to fight their way to a win over power 5 teams.
Today’s pay for play losses:
$1.5M: What Texas A&M paid Appalachian State to play them. They lost 17-14.
$1.423M: What Nebraska paid Georgia Southern to play them. They lost 45-42.
$1.25M: What Notre Dame paid Marshall to play them. They lost 26-21.
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) September 11, 2022
Starting with unranked Marshall’s Thundering Herd win over ranked number 8 Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish on Saturday, September 10, 2022. Marshall defeated Notre dame 26 to 21 and caused an upset on social media platforms. Over 5.13k mentions were logged as well as a 9.58 million broad reach. Within a 24-hour span, Sprinklr recorded 28.32% (175) positive mentions versus 71.68% (443) negative mentions. Twitter recorded the highest number of mentions with 2,312, and Reddit followed closely behind with 2,114. The sentiment seems to believe highly in Marshall’s favor and branding Notre Dame as ‘overrated.’
MARSHALL FOOTBALL HAS COME INTO SOUTH BEND AND KNOCKED OFF #8 NOTRE DAME!!!
FINAL SCORE: MARSHALL 26 NOTRE DAME 21 pic.twitter.com/C2IvJC3poZ
— Barstool Marshall (@BarstoolMU) September 10, 2022
Secondly, unranked Appalachian State’s Mountaineers mark a win over ranked number 6 Texas A&M’s Aggies. Appalachian State has a history of bringing upsets to power 5 conference teams, but this one specifically gained an exponential amount of social media hits. Beating the ranked team by three points was a slap to the face to Texas A&M after being both invited and paid to attend the Aggies’ stadium. Within 24 hours, Sprinklr recorded 34.75k mentions with an outstanding 139.02 million broad reach. Of those, 68.92% (5.81K) negative mentions and 31.08% (2.62K) positive mentions. Twitter recorded the highest number of mentions with 16,536, and Reddit followed closely behind with 15,397. The sentiment seems to surround the fact that Texas A&M paid Appalachian State to be there, assuming that it would be an easy win.
Notre Dame paid Marshall $1.25 million to visit.
Texas A&M paid App State $1.5 million to visit.It's like paying someone to come to your house and punch you in the face.
— Matt Schick (@ESPN_Schick) September 10, 2022
Lastly, Georgia Southern’s Eagles defeated Nebraska’s Huskies in a three-point differential, 45 – 42. The previous 214 games played on Nebraska’s home turg when 35+ points were scored had all been Huskie wins. Now, their statistical record is 241-1. Following the very first game and loss of the season, the head coach was fired, and the sentiment on Twitter was negative, seemingly outraged over the price of college football. With an extremely high buy-out, many tweets with negative sentiment revolved questioning the funding and allocation of crucial money in a public institution. Sprinklr’s data record 7.2k mentions with a 2.3 million broad reach. Out of those statistics, 28.76% (564) were positive mentions, and 71.24% (1.4K) were negative mentions.
Nebraska gives Scott Frost $15M on his way out for being lousy coach. Think of the difference that money could’ve made in first generation scholarships at the school. The football money at that level is obscene.
— Jim Benemann (@jim_benemann) September 12, 2022
These wins by the underdogs brought on a majority of adverse reactions from social media platforms, according to Sprinklr’s data. Social media platforms have become an outlet for both loving and hating fans to express themselves. It can be vital for teams to engage with their audience on platforms such as Twitter to keep authenticity and loyalty high amongst the fans. Although it is only week two, upsets will continue to stack up for the teams with the odds stacked against them, and those wins will be translated into Tweets and Reddit streams by the dedicated fans!
https://twitter.com/ESPNCFB/status/1568739768082788352?s=20&t=CHeDla5Nzqz0b0qzcV2-pQ
Author: Louisa Glazunova
