The first message came in the middle of the night, around 11 p.m. Pacific; the second came this morning, around 8 a.m., after the first missive began making the rounds. On Twitter, too, "Black Mamba" is a showman, coyly leaking just enough information – INTERVIEWED BY NCAA ABOUT USC – to grab the college football Twitter-sphere's attention, but not nearly enough for anyone to draw any conclusions. ("I'M NOT EVEN GOING THERE.")
Why should you care about the vague tweets of an 18-year-old nicknamed for a venomous snake? For one thing, whatever your opinion of vague tweets, any acknowledgement of actual activity by a first-person source is about as much information about an ongoing NCAA investigation as we're going to get. Both programs have also been a little on edge lately. For Oregon, it comes less than 48 hours after the school felt compelled to pointedly deny rumors that NCAA investigators were lurking around campus. For USC, it comes not only a) During the probationary period for the most heavy-handed NCAA sanctions in a decade, but also b) While the NCAA is hot on coach Lane Kiffin's heels for repeated recruiting violations at Tennessee in 2009. It probably doesn't help that ESPN's Shelley Smith reported in the run-up to Thomas' decision for Oregon on Feb. 2 that USC alumni had been making person appeals for his services on behalf of the Trojans – a relatively minor violation under most circumstances, unless your program is on probation and your head coach is being specifically targeted for a history of such ticky-tack fouls.
Of course, that's assuming that the NCAA's questions were more than due diligence on a late, surprising, high profile de-commitment, and that Thomas doesn't play us instant news-cyclers for fools with a tweet this afternoon that says "AW, JUS KIDDING ERRYBODY!" Until then, we have to assume one of the most hyped freshman in the country has revealed a piece of a legitimate probe of undermined severity. Isn't social media fun?
[UPDATE, 2:58 p.m. ET] Shockingly, Thomas told CBS Sports' Bryan Fischer this afternoon that the Twitter account cited below isn't his and denied any contact with the NCAA. Of course, it's not shocking at all: The story lives on a single source – one that was not taken for granted: Thomas originally linked to the @TheBlaccster Twitter account as his own on his Facebook page on Feb. 24 – under the informal label "might be something, might be nothing." Unless someone can now prove Thomas made the posts and later reneged under pressure, it dies (for now) as nothing. Isn't social media fun?
[UPDATE, 5:02 p.m. ET] In addition to Thomas' Facebook post directing friends to follow him at the @TheBlaccster Twitter account, Fischer – to whom Thomas denied being behind @TheBlaccster earlier today – has also confirmed that Thomas has personally used the account.
[UPDATE, 9:48 a.m. ET, 3/4] Further confirming that Thomas made the posts and later reneged under pressure: De'Anthony Thomas himself, who told the Oregon Register-Guard's Rob Moseley this morning that his meeting with the NCAA involved "nothin bout the Ducks" and was "all bout USC."
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
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