Despite the perpetual tone deafness of Pete Moris, Athlon Sports put VT in their top ten Twitter accounts of NCAA football programs.
They specifically like the two pronged approach we use, splitting tweets between @VT_Football and @HokiesFB:
The two-headed attack from the Hokies can be a blessing for all, from the hardcore to the casual fan. You'll find a lot of fun content on one account, keeping the other open for mainly business.
While I can't say I agree with the ranking, it's good to see VT recognized in an era where social media presence is critical for building and sustaining a program.
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Pete is totally going to tweet about this over the next year.
Our Twitter is ranked #10. Carl Lewis won 10 Olympic medals so we think he'd follow the Hokies. 👍🔟🥇🏃🏾♂️🏈🦃💪
All I can think of:
"Did you know we're ranked #10 in best Twitter accounts? Sounds a lot like going 1-0!"
Oh no, now I've given him an idea...
You'll find a lot of content on one account, that's for sure. The fun part of that is a tad questionable
Is there a sports site (other than TKP of course) that isn't basically the buzzfeed of sports?
quick let's rank them from most- to least- buzzfeedlike, that's the only way to get to the bottom of this
This just seems like confirmation that Twitter is an irredeemable cesspool.
This. Pete Morris is consistently tone-deaf, and yet there may be 115 or so that are EVEN WORSE.
Evil. Should've never gotten out of the hands of middle school girls.
I'm still hoping we hire whoever writes the Belk Bowl tweets.
They're pretty good, and capable with nuanced tweets without shooting themselves in the foot.
They are also pretty phenomenal at interacting with journalists and fans on Twitter. It's all around impressive. I feel terrible for them on getting stuck with loluva this year.
They were throwing shade at Hokie fans tweeting about loluva going to their bowl.
and at Clemson fans.
Wonder if they also run the Wendy's account? The shade they throw is remarkably well done.
Please, Whit, find out who this is and hire them.
I may or may not have contributed.
More Belk Bowl wins than fans at the Zima spring fling.
Not 100% certain, but I believe it's this guy.
https://twitter.com/MillerYoho
I'm sorry, but who is Pete Moris?
The bane of our existence
The bane of our existenceThe guy who orchestrates the 10th best college twitter account - according to a recent poll. #1 will shock you.
He runs sports information for all teams but focuses on football which means as part of his job he runs the social media like twitter. But also controls media access to Fuente, runs press conferences and conference calls.
Ah ok - thanks! I guess I kind of figured we had a person that was sort of an 'office manager' for communication logistics, just didn't know that so many people would know that person by name.
Appreciate the assist!
It's kinda like a baseball umpire. You only know his name if he sucks.
Greaaaaaaaaaaat. Just what Pete Moris needs...validation. /SSSSSSSS
Can someone copy-paste so I don't have to click?
It's not a slideshow and it's not Bleacher Report. Just click the link. Athlon Sports is a fantastic publication every year.
Also copy-paste is against guidelines.
1. SCAR @GamecockFB
2. UGA @FootballUGA
3. Clemson @ClemsonFB
4. UCF @UCF_Football
5. Oregon @oregonfootball
6. Utah @Utah_Football
7. Texas @TexasFootball
8. West Virginia @WVUfootball
9. LSU @LSUfootball
10. VT @VT_Football/@HokiesFB
There's a blurb for each entry too
Are there only 10 college football twitters?
I imagine we'd be #1 without Pete
Pete Morris and VT Twitter has taken more heat than deserved. Mostly, you just have to understand that Twitter is a two second blip on a person's day when scrolling through the follows.
For most people, sure. For high profile entities, Twitter is front and center on the PR department, and one bad tweet can permanently damage and ruin a reputation. Pete has flirted with that line a little more than a lot of people are willing to accept.
It just isnt as earth shattering as we want to believe. There is a reason Athlon has never heard of the embarrassing things that come out....it just doesnt have staying power. When it does, it is only because it gets elevated to some other platform.
Ask Rosie O'Donnell how harmless Twitter is
yes, but also covfefe
This is categorically false.
Pete should have been fired several times over for some of the embarrassing things the VT Twitter accounts have put out.
If he should have been fired I think he would have been fired. It isnt an irreplaceable position.
With all due respect, that's a naive way to look at things. Plenty of people are bad at their jobs and continue to be employed, for a myriad of reasons.
Whether its the irresponsible or embarrassing tweets, or the incredibly tone deaf way that VT publicly handled the ECU cancellation, Pete is bad at his job.
Aside the handling of the ECU situation, what else has he royally screwed-up? Not trying to defend - i just honestly dont know what else has been botched.
Like I just said below, there was a tone-deaf "epicenter" tweet after a major earthquake. I know there have been more, but that's the only one I remember offhand at the moment.
Or the time when he tweeted an image a day or two after a devastating earthquake describing Blacksburg as the "epicenter" of some such.
They also posted something about the hurricane game against UNC during the ECU week.
Pete likely has plenty of other behind the scenes responsibilities but his public facing duties have been lackluster at best and embarrassing at worst.
Obviously Whit has a lot of work to dig us out of the hole Weaver left in terms of modernization of the Athletic Department (Beamerball.com anyone?), and I'm glad we've at least put more resources into Twitter/IG etc. but I think Pete is one of the biggest mistakes Whit has made thus far.
Don't forget the Miami earthquake tweet the day of the deadly earthquake in Central America I think.
Oh, yeah, there was also that "Hokies are waterproof" tweet as a hurricane was bearing down on the east coast.
Did I do that right?
Yeah, there was also the "epicenter" tweet right around the time of a major earthquake, wasn't there?
I think he did that within minutes of ECU canceling the game. The timing was awful, and was directly referenced numerous times by the sports media down here.
I don't have a dog in this fight, but all those things people are saying Pete did wrong seem harmless to me. It's not like he supported white supremacy or made fun of a kid with cancer or laughed at a dead baby joke.
"Compared to these examples of terrible atrocities done by certain other people, the fact that the stuff he did was merely 'really dumb' should be applauded."
Like I said earlier, if Virginia Tech really has the 10th best college athletics Twitter account setup, that just seems like confirmation that Twitter is truly a hellhole.
Uh no...just not vilified and chastised.
For some reason, his name sounds familiar. Didn't he use to post on 247?
Anyone care to run down the transgressions? I'm only really familiar with the ECU/ "Hokies are waterproof" mishap
He said cheese sucks, Chick-fil-A isn't the best fast food, "Vah" Tech rolls off the tongue, Christmas Vacation isn't funny, etc. Unforgivable, unprofessional, completely false statements like that.
I mean, he's right about cheese.
Is this French's burner account or are there actually two people in this world who don't like cheese?
#stillmorethanhoofansattheirfestival
Tweeting "We have 3 have Edmunds yes we do, we have 3 Edmunds, how bout you?" more than once.
Yes, he of all people should know the plural is "Edmundi"
If we're going down that path, why not mention that, for a while, the only NFL player we ever seemed to want to acknowledge was Tyrod, and boy did we ever force the issue there
My Reaction when reading the thread title:
It's funny because Frank is making that face at something Pete said.
this is what I was waiting for
What is Pete telling Coach in this gif? I'll start...
You just crapped all over Paul Johnson..
this just reminds me that we used to know how to beat GT...now I have the sadz
here's a sobering fact. That's still the last time we beat GT
And we were wearing orange?! Twilight zone...
Really... we're not over-saturated with stats and ratings about the game itself that we have to start rating the twitter handles of the programs?
When does Rivals start rating our incoming class of Twitter writers?
Maybe for content but def not for engagement. We average like 3 comments on posts they put up. I have been wondering for some time what the disconnect is. I have compared it to the likes of Ohio State, they post anything and automatically get thousands of comments. We have 69K people following the twitter account!
It's an unpopular opinion, but I don't have a problem with Pete Moris. His epicenter comments were a little tone deaf, but not that big of a deal. He hasn't done anything that bad. As far as PR disasters go, WakeyLinks and the Monetary Fine program were far more embarrassing than anything Pete tweeted.
And so it begins...
So, there was this tweet after the UVA game.
The majority of replies were about a game featuring Miami on December 1, 2001.
I'm kind of surprised it didn't get deleted.
I was at that Miami game, but you can almost forgive him for thinking it wasn't in December since it was 70 and sunny.
#firepetemoris
He strikes again
The athletic department has been done a solid job with it's video content this season. Post game vids, pregame trailers, even highlight videos. They were not doing that last year. They've also engaged creative fans by sharing fan hype videos on Twitter and at Lane.
And if Pete's the one in charge of that, then good on him. Give him some credit when it's due.
The Hokie Vision crews manage those I'm pretty sure.
Hokie Vision does all the video creation, with direction from Marketing. Distribution is also handled by marketing.