Nebraska football: Wisconsin fans remind us how not to act towards recruits

Nebraska football fans can take notes from a set of Wisconsin fans on how not to handle a player decommitting from their favorite school.

There’s very little doubt that when the Nebraska football team loses a player that had previously committed, fans can get a little surly. To some degree that is the nature of sports.

Fan, as we all know is short for fanatic. A player deciding that he wants to look around, after committing to a school is the nature of college sports as well.

There’s a kind of non-verbal contract between players and fans that when there is a decommitment, people can be plenty surly but there is a limit to exactly how surly fans are allowed to be.

This week, Wisconsin fans gave an impromptu demonstration of what violating that contract looks like. Wide receiver Nolan Groulx committed to Wisconsin on January 28 when he took an official visit to the Badgers.

On Wednesday, Groulx announced he was going to look around and perhaps choose a new school. He talked to Land of 10 about his decision saying;  “Over time, stuff just started to play out where we thought it wasn’t the best decision. Probably the last three weeks, me and my family have been talking about it a lot. We just thought we’d make the decision now to just open my recruitment back up.”

When the receiver took to Twitter to thank the Wisconsin coaches for their time and attention, Badger fans took out their anger on the player. There were the usual comments about how he was going to regret his decision.

There were also some comments that were a bit beyond the pale. One fan calling Groulx a “loser” was the tamest of comments that clearly crossed the line.

It’s safe to say that Wisconsin fans that took this route forgot that anyone and everyone can see their comments. Those comments certainly aren’t the best that fanbase has to offer.

It is indeed a living, breath embodiment of how Nebraska football fans should never act when they lose a player they thought was going to join the fold. Nebraska basketball fans can keep that in mind when talking about the loss of players like Xavier Johnson.

Next: What you should know about newest commit Rahmir Johnson

Going after players on social media is never a good look. Anyone who thinks it might serve a purpose other than looking foolish just needs to look at what Wisconsin fan did recently in order to be convinced otherwise.