/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/51945595/621282172.0.jpeg)
After Saturday’s 30-24 loss to rival Georgia State, Georgia Southern Eagles head coach Tyson Summers took to Twitter to block fans who have not been pleased with the team’s performance thus far this season.
Randomly Twitter searched Tyson Summers and it appears he blocked a bunch of fans last night. Things are not going well at Georgia Southern.
— Dan Wolken (@DanWolken) November 20, 2016
And Coach Summers leads the FBS in most fans blocked on Twitter https://t.co/Q06hPW8HTu
— Chandler Avery (@C_Avery2) November 20, 2016
@TKleinleinAD @TysonSummersGS If our o-line could block like you block fans on Twitter, we'd be national champs.
— Todd (@sevarai) November 21, 2016
While the squad has not been performing the way everyone had hoped out on the football field, attempting to shield yourself from criticism by blocking dissenting opinions is not the way to go about rectifying the situation.
USA Today even got in on the action, ranking Georgia Southern at #4 on this week’s misery index:
Meanwhile, a quick search revealed that Summers spent part of Saturday night blocking fans on Twitter, which isn’t exactly the lesson he should have learned from the VanGorder debacle.
Since Saturday’s game, two players who were committed to play for the Eagles have since decommitted, and it’s hard to blame them to be honest.
At this point, it can be assumed that the silence from Summers and athletic director Tom Kleinlein means that the head coach will be back next season no matter what happens when GS takes on Troy Dec. 3.
I would hope that Kleinlein would set Summers straight regarding Twitter etiquette, but TK isn’t always the most social media savvy guy either.
Lesson 1 of social media: the worst thing you can do after losing is to go complete damage control, Tom. pic.twitter.com/E8JSuhFU7n
— Brian (@WatchTheStone) October 8, 2016
The sad thing out of all of this is that next year is essentially going to be a punt to 2018 unless Summers improves both his coaching and that of his staff over the offseason. That means replacing coaches who are running ineffective offensive schemes, and hitting the recruiting trail hard to either get back talent that has decommitted or pick up even better players for the future.
Either way, this season is going to set the Eagles back a few years, both in the recruiting game and just in general mistrust from the fan base. There is a zero percent chance the GS coach resigns at the end of this year and passes up a big payday.
Personally, I lost hope that Summers was going to be an effective head coach after watching the Eagles give away a very winnable game to Arkansas State earlier this season, and under his coaching the team seems to have regressed every single week.
Maybe if ticket sales and attendance start to decline next year, Kleinlein will pull the plug on the Summers experiment.
Last night, Nathan Deen of the Savannah Morning News tweeted Summers’ response to the controversy:
Summers on blocking twitter followers: "I made a poor decision. Certainly didn’t foresee all the things that would come with it." (1/2)
— Nathan Deen (@NathanDeenSMN) November 22, 2016
(2/2) Summers on blocking twitter followers: "I was doing it solely based on a recruiting standpoint.”
— Nathan Deen (@NathanDeenSMN) November 22, 2016
If he was doing it based on a recruiting standpoint, it didn’t work. One of the two players who decommitted was the brother of a player currently on the team.
Things are getting rough in Statesboro, and it doesn’t look like they’ll get better in the near future.