CFP National Championship 2023: TCU Charts New Social, Digital Course During Historic 2022-23 Season New staff, reinvigorated passion for digital has paid off in spades By Kristian Hern ndez, Senior Editor
Monday, January 9, 2023 - 9:00 am
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Title games were made for elevating barely noticed teams into pillars of folklore, and no program is more suited to the high-stakes College Football Playoff National Championship than the Texas Christian University (TCU) Horned Frogs. A sub-.500 squad last season, the Big 12 Conference team has transformed itself into a formidable force on a national scale. After an extensive overhaul in the offseason, the athletics department's digital- and social-media effort deploys engaging content to entertain long-time supporters and new fans jumping on the TCU hype train.
I can't thank our administration enough for buying into what we're doing, says Jason Andrews, director, football creative media, Texas Christian University Athletics. Our goal is to give access to the team by showing you what's going on all the time and get you invested in the program in ways that weren't done in the past.
Associate Athletics Director, Football, Anthony Crespino (far left) and the digital/social-media team - (from left) Jon Petrie, Jason Andrews, Maddie Anderson, Student Intern Cole Sayre, Michaela Schumacher, and Luke Heslep - after winning the 2023 Vrbo Fiesta Bowl.
Deep-Rooted Trust: Head Coach Goes All-In With Passionate Social-Media Push Numerically speaking, with a Fall 2022 enrollment of 12,273 students, TCU isn't the largest NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision school in the U.S. Knowing that this is the case, the university decided to bolster its social-media presence to not only keep alumni in the loop but also draw attention to its entire athletics portfolio.
On the football side, Andrews was one of the first hires the institution made to reach that goal. Having spent four seasons as senior director, creative media, Southern Methodist University (2018-21); four seasons as assistant athletics director, football operations, Arkansas State University (2014-17); and seven years as assistant director, new media, University of North Carolina (2007-14), he's a seasoned veteran in this space and well-suited to create this new digital foundation.
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Andrews hit the ground running, assembling an Avengers-like team of creatives from around the collegiate ranks: Assistant Director, Football Creative Video, Michaela Schumacher from Texas Tech University; Director, Football Graphic Design, Maddie Anderson from SMU; Coordinator, Creative Video, Jon Petrie from the University of Maine; and Graduate Assistant, Creative Video, Luke Heslep from Auburn University.
I figured we'd just get our feet wet in Year 1, but here we are playing in the National Championship, says Andrews. [The media team has] been able to handle everything that has been thrown at them, and it has been cool to see them flourish under every type of circumstance. Ultimately, you don't get to do the crazy things that we're doing on social media if we're not 13-1.
You also can't do the out-of-the-box content that the crew has been doing without the trust of the coaching staff and players. As luck would have it, Andrews made the leap to his current role at the same time current head coach Sonny Dykes left SMU for the purple and white in Fort Worth, TX. After four years of a working relationship with Dykes, Andrews dove headfirst into showing off the behind-the-scenes aspects of the team.
I knew what we could and couldn't do, he says. I can walk into [Dykes's] office and ask him to say a certain thing into the camera, and he'll do it without asking why, because he knows we're not going to do anything to make the program look bad. All you can ask for [in a coach] is letting you do things that you think are cool and will help build the brand, recruiting, and interest. That all starts with him.
Along for the Ride: Crew Produces Traditional Social Elements To Provide Access With Coach Dykes on board, the players were gradually sold on pulling back the proverbial curtain. The signoff has turned into the creation of traditional concepts, such as uniform reveals (most notably, the blood-red fit for the Oct. 15 game vs. No. 8 Oklahoma State and ice-white motif for the last-second road win over Baylor University on Nov. 19), postgame celebrations with singing and dancing, and long-form series like TCU Football: Carter Boys in partnership with ESPN+. Formatted similarly to HBO's Hard Knocks, the series ratchets the promise of putting fans into the perspective of a player to an entirely new level.
We're taking you into team meetings and miking up coaches and players during practice, says Andrews. If you see sophomore safety Bud Clark make an interception, you know that he's the guy from Louisiana that dances well and not just No. 26. It took the players a little while to get used to that, but I think our fanbase immediately loved it.
Cinematic, short-form videos have made it into the mix as well. The most prominent is pairing The Drifters' classic tune This Magic Moment with scenes from the field after the team's win vs. the University of Michigan in the 2023 Vrbo Fiesta Bowl:
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CFP National Championship 2023: TCU Charts New Social, Digital Course During Historic 2022-23 Season New staff, reinvigorated passion for digital has paid off in spades By Kristian Hern ndez, Senior Editor 
