College football has long been famous for its pageantry and tradition, but college football Twitter is bringing the sport a new claim to fame: online savagery. Teams from across the country are digging at their rivals via Twitter, bringing an engaging element to an already thrilling on-field product.
Discourse among college football fans is no longer limited to stadium tailgates or message boards. Teams are carrying the conversation through their savage tweets, and the very best have made this list.
From trashing a rival through a marching band routine to a Mr. Potato Head reference, here are the most savage college football tweets of the year. The list is in no particular order.
Ole Miss trolls littering Tennessee fans
Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin was serenaded with more than boos during his highly-anticipated return to Neyland Stadium. With just over a minute remaining in the Ole Miss-Tennessee game and the Rebels up five, the Volunteers fell a yard short of the first-down marker on a fourth-and-24 pass. Once the spot of the ball was confirmed, fans began throwing everything from mustard bottles to golf balls onto the field, prompting this elite comeback from Ole Miss’ Twitter account.
The former Tennessee coach Kiffin said he got hit by “bottles with some brown stuff in them” and came away with a “souvenir golf ball.”
The incident forced Tennessee’s cheerleaders, dance team, band and student section to leave the stadium and stopped play for 20 minutes. A University of Tennessee Police Department spokesperson said 18 people were arrested and 47 were ejected.
Purdue shows no mercy to Iowa after shocking win
Iowa came into its Oct. 16 game against Purdue riding high off a 23-20 victory over then-No. 4 Penn State. The Boilermakers dampened the mood rather quickly.
Purdue smashed then-No. 2 Iowa by a score of 24-7 in Kinnick Stadium and outgained the Hawkeyes by nearly 200 yards. The shocking loss – and ensuing tweet from the Purdue football account – sent Iowa into a brief tailspin, as it suffered a 27-7 loss to Wisconsin the following week.
The last laugh goes to Iowa, though, as it won every game since its Wisconsin loss and will play Michigan for a Big Ten title on Saturday.
Kentucky goes gator wrangling
Kentucky has long been a doormat to Florida, losing every game in the series from 1987 to 2017. But the Wildcats have won two of their last four against the Gators, not including this W of a tweet after their 23-20 win on Oct. 3.
Florida – which came into the Kentucky game ranked 10th – cratered after the loss, losing four of its next six games before firing coach Dan Mullen. Kentucky, on the other hand, finished 9-3 after its gator wrangling.
Texas is…not back
Texas opened the Steve Sarkisian era with an impressive 38-18 win over then-No. 23 Louisiana, but Arkansas proved the program isn’t quite “back” a week later. The Razorbacks throttled the Longhorns, 40-21, in Razorback Stadium and posted a hilarious video to commemorate the moment afterward.
The video features former Longhorns quarterback Sam Ehlinger and The Undertaker proclaiming Texas is back, but cut in the middle of their words are clips of Jonathan Frakes telling them they’re wrong. The Frakes clips are from the show “Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction.”
Texas limped to a 5-7 record the rest of the way while Arkansas finished the regular season with eight wins, its most since 2015.
Ohio State band trashes Michigan — literally
Ohio State played Penn State on Oct. 30, but the marching band couldn’t help but take a dig at the Buckeyes’ most heated rival that night.
In an elaborate halftime show, Ohio State’s band members formed into groups of what looked to be two stick figures and a garbage can. One of the stick figures then opened the can and the other dumped a Michigan Wolverines flag inside.
While Ohio State bested Michigan on the internet, the Wolverines did so on the field by dominating the Buckeyes by a score of 42-27 to close the regular season. The win punched Michigan’s ticket into the aforementioned Big Ten title game against Iowa.
Ole Miss spoils Freeze’s return to Oxford
Hugh Freeze, who resigned from Ole Miss in 2017 after a messy NCAA investigation, likely hoped for redemption when his Liberty squad rolled into Oxford to play the Rebels on Nov. 6. The 52-year-old Freeze instead took a loss in more ways than one, as the Rebels topped Liberty, 27-14, and roasted him after the game.
In the since-deleted tweet, Ole Miss called back to the instance in which Freeze coached Liberty’s game against Syracuse from a hospital bed. Freeze was recovering from a staph infection at the time.
While the Ole Miss loss and ensuing tweet wasn’t Freeze’s brightest moment, the coach ended his regular season on a high note by signing a long-term contract extension. Liberty went 7-5 under Freeze this season and is 25-10 since he arrived four seasons ago.
McConaughey catches a stray after embarrassing Texas loss
Just when the Longhorns’ season looked as if it couldn’t get any worse, they lost to Kansas – a team that hasn’t won more than three games since 2009 – at home to fall to 4-6. Academy Award-winning actor Matthew McConaughey, a Texas alum who’s taught at the school and serves as the athletic department’s minister of culture, caught a stray in the process.
Kansas athletics posted People’s Sexiest Man Alive covers of McConaughey and Kansas alum Paul Rudd with the caption “You vs the guy they told you not to worry about.”
McConaughey graced the Sexiest Man Alive cover in 2005 and Rudd did so in 2021. Coincidentally, the year McConaughey won Sexiest Man Alive is also the last year Texas won a national championship.
Hokies reset the rivalry clock
Virginia takes the Commonwealth Cup seriously enough to have a “Beat Tech” clock in its locker room, and the Hokies mocked exactly that after last week’s 29-24 win. Virginia Tech, which earned bowl eligibility with the win, posted a video of it resetting the clock to just under 365 days with a winking emoji.
The Hokies’ tweet pours salt into the wounds of Virginia fans who’ve seen their team lose all but one Commonwealth Cup since 2004. Both teams will bring new coaches to the game next year, though, as Penn State defensive coordinator Brent Pry will replace Justin Fuente at Tech while Bronco Mendenhall stepped down at Virginia.
Clemson adds horsepower to South Carolina rivalry
While Clemson won’t be competing in the ACC Championship game for the first time in seven years, it celebrated a different No. 7 after last week’s 30-0 win over rival South Carolina. The Tigers posted a video of a car with the license plate “7NA ROW” driving off after their seventh consecutive Palmetto Bowl win.
While Clemson’s video must sting for South Carolina fans, they can take solace in knowing their team is bowl eligible for the first time since 2018.
How do ya like them apples?
Washington State came into last week’s Apple Cup having lost seven straight in the series. And after the Cougars’ 40-13 thrashing of the Huskies, Washington State football tweeted a video it’s likely waited a while to unleash.
The Cougars’ video featured Matt Damon yelling “How do ya like them apples” in a scene from “Good Will Hunting.” Damon’s character showed off a napkin with a romantic interest’s phone number on it in the movie, but Washington State replaced the phone number with the 40-13 final score in its video.
With an Apple Cup win and bowl eligibility, Washington State closed its regular season strong despite going through a noisy midseason coaching change.
