A Broyles Award "sexifinalist" graphic from Ohio State on Jim Knowles. A Broyles Award “sexifinalist” graphic from Ohio State on Jim Knowles. (Ohio State Football on Twitter.)
College FootballTwitterBy Andrew Bucholtz on

There’s a lot of buildup ahead of the Ohio State Buckeyes and Michigan Wolverines (No. 2 and No. 3 respectively as of last week’s CFP rankings, also in those positions in this week’s AP poll and coaches’ poll) facing off Saturday. That’s included lots of trash talk from players, coaches and fans, and even some unusual moves from team Twitter accounts.

Ohio State’s Twitter account has gone away from using the letter “m” this week in reference to Michigan. Instead, they crossed that out with an X. But that led to quite the tweet Tuesday about defensive coordinator Jim Knowles being named one of 15 semifinalists for the Broyles Award, given annually to the nation’s top assistant coach. With an X in place of a M, that saw Knowles named a “sexifinalist”:

And that led to some notable Twitter reaction:

As some noted, too, this also showed some inconsistency with the M in Knowles’ name not being blacked out in the tweet tag (although it was in the graphic):

Interestingly enough, too, this comes after Knowles’ sister Paula Knowles Miller feuding with some Michigan fans:

So there’s lots of notable talk about Knowles here. But it’s certainly unusual for Ohio State to add to that themselves with their M ban backfiring. Congrats to Knowles on his sexifinalist nomination.

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.

View all posts by Andrew Bucholtz