The College Sports Social Pulse, a new initiative from the University of South Carolina’s Social Media Insights Lab, analyzes how college football teams, coaches and players trend across social media platforms each week.
The CSSP is a program that turns the viral noise of college football into measurable data through a weekly index ranking of the top ten teams, players and coaches. The index looks at how often people talk about them online, how they engage with posts and the overall tone of those conversations, showing who’s capturing the most attention and how fans are reacting.
The Social Media Insights Lab is a research center that measures online conversations across platforms such as X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and Reddit. Using advanced analytics tools, the lab helps organizations understand the impact of digital trends, giving students hands-on experience with data work in journalism, advertising and public relations.
According to the school’s College of Information and Communications, the “Social Media Insights Lab is capturing the pulse of the college football world — tracking every viral moment, hot take and trending hashtag in real time.”
The program recently signed a contract with Fox Sports, marking its first major industry partnership. The move brings national attention to the university and gives students a direct connection to one of the country’s leading sports media brands as they help prepare weekly reports for Fox Sports Big Noon Kickoff. Through the collaboration, the Social Media Insights Lab provides Fox with weekly analytics reports that help the network understand how audiences are engaging with its programming online.
Contrary to other rankings such as the AP Poll, the CSSP bases its weekly rankings solely on the social buzz generated around college football, not on the physical performance of a team, player or coach.
For example, in week seven, Penn State found itself as the number one in all three top ten rankings. This was not a result of their performance in the game against Northwestern, but instead was primarily a result of all of the social media buzz surrounding the firing of the Penn State Football head coach James Franklin.
Clay Owen, professor of practice and co-founder of the CSSP, said the difference is deliberate.
“You can be number one in our rankings and it can be all bad news, like with Penn State now," Owen said.
Owen said this method of ranking was the first of its kind and that no one else was doing anything quite like it. Director of the Social Media Insights Lab Jameson Hayes said that the university has the ability to expand on the depth and take a step back to focus on the details that other teams, media and ranking sources are unable to.
Owen and Hayes described the program as part research project, part classroom and part commercial product, designed to teach students how to utilize and analyze real-world data skills while also helping businesses make decisions. Housed within the School of Journalism and Mass Communications, the project currently involves three student interns working in the Social Media Insights Lab, where they collect and interpret weekly data for the rankings and prepare reports for clients such as Fox Sports, Hayes said.
Students aren’t just observing the process — they’re actively learning to apply data analysis, public relations and storytelling skills that align with the school’s curriculum. Hayes said he sees the incorporation of the CSSP into future journalism and sports media courses, giving students the chance to earn class credit while gaining hands-on experience with industry-level analytics.
"It's translating learning into passion." Hayes said. "If we can take a deep dive into something we need to learn for industry in a context that we're passionate about, then you're always going to do a better job."
In addition to its educational benefits, the CSSP also holds commercial value by helping businesses make decisions based on fan behavior. Owen and Hayes said the team has already received interest from other sports organizations and media outlets exploring similar partnerships.
“Word is catching out there that we’re doing something interesting around here,” Owen said. “Sports is a big business ... so if we can provide a new measure which is useful to help businesses make good decisions, then we're providing a real quality product in the marketplace.”
The multifaceted results being produced each week highlight the complex relationship between fan emotion, media coverage and on and off-field performance, which reveal how quickly narratives can change in the digital age. These findings also capture trends in factors including geography, time zones, the different conferences and fan loyalty that can impact the results, Owen and Hayes.
“You never know what’s going to drive a conversation online, but our rankings really reflect that," Owen said.
For instance, South Carolina redshirt sophomore quarterback LaNorris Sellers climbed as high as third on the top ten players ranking after a viral moment when a Kentucky player accidentally threw a ball into the stands and struck Sellers' grandfather. The clip spread rapidly across social platforms, spiking online conversation about Sellers and pushing him up the list.
CSSP co-founders Owen and South Carolina professor of practice Chris Caldwell said when this project first started, the goal was to find something that could maximize the untapped potential of the Social Media Insights Lab, and the CSSP has done exactly that. Both Owen and Caldwell said they are measuring the social impact on social media of college football and filling a white space in the industry.
“I haven’t seen anybody, including major publications that cover the sports industry, giving social media insights on behalf of the fans," Caldwell said.
With national exposure through Fox Sports and repeated mentions in stories from major athletic programs such as the University of Georgia, the CSSP has helped to elevate the University of South Carolina by recognizing it as an expert in social media, according to Owen.
“This project just shows that the university has the expertise to create a whole new system of measuring college sports through its Social Media Insights Lab,” Owen said.
CSSP posts press releases and weekly rankings on its website. Rankings are also shared on the College of Information and Communication's social media.
Hayes said the program is currently working on building its social media presence, which will launch soon, expanding the conversation with fans.