If you’re a college football fan who spends much time on Twitter, maybe you’ve felt that the two SEC opponents in the Playoff, Alabama and Georgia, have gotten hyped up a lot as potential National Championship opponents. You’d be right.
Georgia vs. Alabama is the internet’s most-discussed National Championship scenario
That’s the matchup people are talking about most, according to data from Twitter and Google.
Twitter’s most discussed potential title game by far: Bama-Georgia.
For Dec. 3, the day the Playoff field was unveiled, Twitter’s data team mined every tweet that mentioned two of the four Playoff teams together along with something about the Playoff or the title game. Of those tweets (numbers rounded):
- 64 percent were about Alabama-Georgia
- 18 percent were about Georgia-Clemson
- 11 percent were about Alabama-Oklahoma
- 6 percent were about Oklahoma-Clemson
Twitter measured that by pairing various keyword searches, so things like “Playoff” and “Georgia” and “Roll Tide” and “Dawgs,” and “championship” put together.
Does that mean people want Bama-Georgia?
Yes and no.
A lot of people have clamored for it. It makes sense that two SEC teams from opposite divisions, who only see each other every three or four years, would have fan bases that want to get together. It Just Means More, etc.
That kind of thing is rampant.
There are also scores of people who would be sickened to the core by two SEC teams battling for a title, just as they were when Alabama and LSU fought for all the marbles in a rematch BCS Championship to end 2011. There are also people who just don’t like Alabama or Georgia:
People might not want Bama-Georgia. But they’re talking about it.
This is certainly not just a Twitter thing, and it continued beyond the day the rankings came out.
Google search trends since the field’s unveiling also show people are fascinated (in one way or another) by the idea of two teams from the same conference playing for the title:
The blue line is for “alabama georgia” searches. The other three lines are equivalent searches for the other three possible pairings.
Some other Playoff Twitter odds and ends, via Twitter.
Georgia’s official handle has grown a ton since the season started. That makes sense, given that UGA went from 8-4 to 12-1 and a Playoff berth, while the other three have been in the Playoff already.
The College Football Playoff of Twitter follower growth
Team Handle | Followers on Aug. 26 | Followers Dec. 10 | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|
| @FootballUGA | 576,427 | 746,618 | 29.53% |
| @ClemsonFB | 762,580 | 908,629 | 19.15% |
| @OU_Football | 401,807 | 468,431 | 16.58% |
| @AlabamaFTBL | 676,387 | 747,884 | 10.57% |
Twitter
But Clemson remains college football’s Twitter king:
“We know that you can get a way better view of the game by watching ESPN,” Clemson director of new and creative media Jonathan Gantt said. “They had a record number of cameras, they had broadcasters, we’re not gonna do that better than they do. So we need to focus on, what are the stories? What are the perspectives that maybe they’re not focused on, that we should be focused on, that we can share and supplement what they’re doing in the broadcast?”
The most tweeted-about players on each team, in order
From Dec. 3 to 15:
Alabama
- Jalen Hurts, QB
- Calvin Ridley, WR
- Minkah Fitzpatrick, CB
Clemson
- Kelly Bryant, QB
- Hunter Renfrow, WR
- Travis Etienne, RB
Oklahoma
- Baker Mayfield, QB
- Rodney Anderson, RB
- Ogbonnia Okoronkwo, LB
Georgia
- Jake Fromm, QB
- Nick Chubb, RB
- Sony Michel, RB
The public likes to talk about offensive skill position players. No disrespect intended toward Fitzpatrick, Roquan Smith, or any of the 32 future NFL defensive linemen currently playing for Clemson.
The most popular tweets sent by each program this season:
(Yeah, the most popular Oklahoma tweet all season was Heisman-winning quarterback Baker Mayfield apologizing for planting a silly flag at midfield at Ohio State after crushing the Buckeyes in their own stadium, because some of their fans cried about it.)
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