Bob Stoops has started following Tennessee commits on Twitter

Posted on September 19, 2017

NCAA Football: Sugar Bowl-Auburn vs Oklahoma

Bob Stoops has insisted since he retired this past summer that this was it for him on the coaching front. He was ready to move on with his life and flip the page to the “next chapter”, which was yet to be determined. In the meantime it would include watching his twin boys play their final seasons of high school football and enjoying the downtime. Did you buy it? I was skeptical. Well after this past weekend, there is more reason to take Stoops’ post-retirement comments with a grain of salt.

Tennessee head coach Butch Jones entered the season on the hot season and there is little doubt that his seat is on absolute fire after they lost on a Hail Mary to Florida on Saturday afternoon.

The Florida radio call of the Hail Mary sounds like Will Ferrell impersonating Harry Caray: pic.twitter.com/VK0ux1mTV2
— College Sports Only (@OfficialCSO) September 17, 2017

Well, many of the folks in Knoxville are more than ready to send Jones packing and find his replacement.

Nice start to the morning in Knoxville for Butch Jones. pic.twitter.com/w5vTU4oqQ8
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) September 19, 2017

Who’s on the list? Everyone from Chip Kelly to Dan Mullen to Les Miles… and yes, to Bob Stoops.

And Bob Stoops did something funny in recent days, he began following some of the high school players who are currently committed to the Vols. I took a screenshot of some of Stoops’ recent follows on Twitter and you can see two Tennessee commits are highlighted.

I went through all 335 of the people Stoops follows on Twitter and found five Tennessee commits. Along with Dorian Gerald and Adrian Martinez, Stoops also follows Brant Lawless, Lyn-J Dixon and Brendon Harris.

Meantime, Stoops also follows a handful of other top 2018 recruits such as Justin Fields, who is rated one of the top prospects in the country, and is uncommitted.

Also on Stoops’ list, which you can see in the photo above, is Carl Reed, the head football coach at Lutheran North High School in Missouri. I did some research into this unusual follow and found that Lutheran North has a number of prospects in 2018 and beyond. In fact 247Sports wrote this article titled: “Lutheran North adapting with the football recruiting times.”

The article was all about how the high school has some highly-rated recruits coming up in the next couple of years, including 247’s top defensive end Ronnie Perkins, running back Donovan Marshall and linebacker Devin Ruffin Jr.

What do we make of all this? Sure, it could all be just a funny coincidence. Maybe Bob Stoops was just watching some high school film in his spare time and said to himself, “Wow! This kid is quite a player! I’m going to go out of my way to follow him on Twitter just for fun!” Or, it could be something more. Stoops could be laying the foundation for his next job?

Let’s just put it this way. If a coach is truly retired and said he’s done, why even bother with following these kids? It makes zero sense.

Also, for the record, does this look like a coach, while watching OU beat Ohio State, that is completely “done” with coaching? Not me… but once again, maybe I’m just reading into all this way too much. But I really don’t think I am.