NAPLES, Fla. – All college football programs have their loyal fanbases with some being more fanatical than others. Once a given program has offered a prospect, all is fair in love and war on social media and in person with fans chipping in their two cents on why a recruit should come to their school. The approach can be in earnest, funny, and sometimes outright nasty towards a rival program.
From the Super 7 tournament in Naples (Fla.), a sampling of players were asked to share their stories about interesting fanbase interactions.
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Fan interaction: “When I went to Ohio State, they had cardboard boxes with my name on it saying “come home” and stuff like that. That was my first time seeing that; that was crazy. It is still kind of weird, but I enjoy people looking at me that way.” – Joshisa Trader
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Fan interaction: “A fan told me that every place sucks but Florida State, then he said “go Noles.” – Fred Gaskin
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Fan interaction: “One fan from a university said “we have an air raid offense so why wouldn’t we add “Air” to our offense; it was something like that. There have been a couple more funny things. The air raid offense equals “Air” was funny.” – Prentiss Air Noland
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Fan interaction: “A fan went into my comments on Twitter and wrote a huge paragraph talking about Jordan Travis (FSU) and compliments about other players – it was crazy. I had never seen that before.” – Ricky Knight
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Fan interaction: “Whenever I was posting Miami stuff from when I went on a visit, Florida State fans would bash Miami. They were saying bad things about them, and stuff like that. They would bring up their record or stadium, stuff like that. They’d bring up that they have no fans.” – Ryan Mack
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Fan interaction: “On social media a fan for USC on Twitter messaged me “come be a Trojan, you’ll be the best receiver to be a Trojan”. He was trying to flip me from Ohio State.” – Jeremiah Smith
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Fan interaction: “Florida State, they replied to my tweet when I dropped a hint that I might go visit up there. They said we have the best women in Tallahassee.” – Austin Simmons
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Fan interaction: “With most people it is an Alabama and Tennessee thing. Alabama doesn’t like Tennessee and Tennessee doesn’t like Alabama, and then add Auburn on top of that. Whichever school, the fans will say we will do more for you.” – KJ Lacey
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Fan interaction: “Somebody, I’m not going to say who, said I will give you a Lambo if you come to our school. I was like, a Lambo, alright (laughs).” – Ronnie Royal
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Fan interaction: “The craziest thing a fan has said to me was, someone sent a bunch of clips of all the great running backs that went to their school and said “if you come out here, you can be better than these guys”.” – Gerald Modest
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