Grayson Weir
Videos by OutKick
The TikTok era of college football is unlike any other. While there is a lot of conversation surrounding Name, Image and Likeness and how it has changed the sport forever — understandably so — the same thing could be said about social media, though that can also be said about society.
Visual media and recruiting go hand-in-hand. Not only for the schools, which are tasked with creating content for the coaching staff’s targets, but for the athletes.
College football recruits and players are documenting their every move online like never before.
Take Vaboue Toure, for example!
(Photos via: Penn State Athletics/Getty Images/TikTok)
Toure, a four-star recruit in the Class of 2024, had 15 offers from Penn State, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Alabama, Duke, Florida State and Michigan State, among others. He took three official visits to Norman, Lexington, and State College.
In the end, it was the Nittany Lions that landed a commitment from the New Jersey-native. Toure used TikTok to announce his decision.
He did not stop there. Toure put a spin on an ongoing viral trend to document his journey.
The viral trend is simple, and is being used in two different ways.
Ariana Grande’s song ‘Thank U, Next’ plays in the background. Where she says “thought I’d end up with,” some TikTok users fill-in the blank with the name of a former lover or crush.
For example:
Athletes took over the trend and replaced the crushes/lovers with sports they once thought that they would play long-term, but didn’t. For example:
Toure took a different approach and replaced the crushes/sports with the schools he most considered.
“Thought I’d end up at Ohio…”
“Wrote some songs about (Oklahoma)…”
“For Kentucky I’m so thankful…”
And then Vaboue Toure ends up with Penn State.
Toure’s video is the perfect example of the social media era of college football. And with NIL being what it is, the four-star safety should turn around his TikTok prowess and new-found virality (his video received nearly 300,000 views) to cash-in!
The cringe generation.