College Football Coaches and Social Media: A Qualitative Content Analysis of SEC Football Program Facebook Fan Pages

College football has become an enormous aspect of American culture. The effects have permeated into the growing realm of social media, particularly Facebook. College football budgets and the salaries of the head coaches are higher than ever before, and they are only getting larger. Further research is necessary to study how public relations practitioners in college athletic departments can understand the link between social media and college football coaches. This study qualitatively analyzes the Facebook pages of the most dominant college football conference, the Southeastern Conference (SEC). The study analyzes if Facebook fans for each SEC football program view the head coaches as heroes, as well as gauge the scope and existence of Facebook fan comments that favorably or unfavorably reference the head coach. A qualitative content analysis of SEC football Facebook fan comments during the peak competition month of November answers these questions. This study shows that certain fans in the SEC, do indeed, view their head coach as a hero. The study also demonstrates the themes, particularly fan revolt against a losing head coach and the importance of rivalry games as it relates to positive and negative fan comments about the SEC head coaches. The effect of this study on the field of public relations is also discussed