When it was announced that safety Vinnie Sunseri would miss the rest of the season with ligament damage, his partner at safety, Ha Ha Clinton-Dix, took to Twitter to send a message to Sunseri and Alabama fans.
“I pray my brother @vsunseri3 (Sunseri) has a speedy recovery tomorrow from his surgery please keep him in your prayers Live through me peanut butter,” Clinton-Dix tweeted. “I know there is no way me nor @ALLAMERICAN_2 (Landon Collins) can match the intensity and effort VINNIE gave to the team but we will do our best.”
While some college football programs ban players completely from Twitter and other social media outlets, many Alabama players are regular users of the social media platform.
Alabama coach Nick Saban said he doesn’t ban his players from social media but monitors their activity and sets guidelines for what players can and can’t say.
“We have a rule that you’re really not supposed to put any information out about our team, things that are internal to our family,” Saban said. “And we don’t want any guy here not to create positive value in himself and his image with anything he might put on social media.”
He also said they have speakers come in and talk to players about the danger of certain content on social media.
“We have people come and speak to players and show them examples of images that are created by things that people put on Twitter so that we’re hopeful that they see that this is not the image that they want to create for themselves and anything that represents our team,” he said. “That’s pretty much our policy. When we have issues, we address them, but we don’t have anything that restricts players from having Twitter.”
Linebacker C.J. Mosley is on Twitter but tweets sparingly.
“I have some where I’m like, ‘Hmm, should I put this? Should I put that?’” Mosley said. “But I’m not really a big tweeter. I don’t tweet a lot of things like that. I’m pretty smart with those type of situations. I was raised the right way. I don’t really want to get put there in the wrong situation and get looked at the wrong way.”
Wide receiver Kevin Norwood, however, isn’t on Twitter.
“I’m not a big social media guy. I can care less about all that stuff,” he said. “I got a Facebook just for the fans and the family that I barely get to talk to back at home. That’s pretty much it.”
Many college coaches, including those of Alabama’s SEC West rivals like LSU’s Les Miles, Texas A&M’s Kevin Sumlin and Auburn’s Gus Malzahn, are active on Twitter. But Saban said it’s not for him.
“I’ve never considered joining Twitter, nor do I know why anybody would,” he said. “There’s a lot of people that do, and I guess that I’m one of the ones in the minority.”
Mosley, however, said he thinks otherwise.
“He claims he don’t have one, but he probably does,” he said.
