To hype up Ohio State’s new uniforms earlier this year, Buckeyes coach Thad Matta eschewed the tradition of having his team or a mannequin pose in the jerseys for social media. Instead, he tried the new uniform and posed. It was perfect, hilarious and a total hit.
But according to Mark Titus’ excellent profile of the coach in The Ringer, it also gave us an opportunity to see Matta’s understanding of social media — or lack thereof.
“I’ll be honest with you,” Matta says. “I don’t understand that world. When they took the picture, they said, ‘Can we post this?’ I don’t even know what ‘post this’ means. I don’t understand. They’re saying this had so many hits, and I’m like, ‘Explain to me what a hit is.’ I don’t understand. Someone texted me, ‘You’ve now got street cred,’ and I’m like, ‘What is street cred? Who do I have street cred with?’ I had no idea. As soon as it came out, [former Ohio State All-American] D’Angelo [Russell] was texting me and he’s busting my balls. So someone says D’Angelo has 500,000 followers and I’m like, ‘What is a follower?’ So they’re explaining that if he sends that out then 500,000 people see that because they’re linked to him and I’m like, ‘What the [expletive] is going on here?’”
