Not only the elite in football, Alabama players also lead the way in social media.
"We do this analysis to see which schools are providing value or which schools produce highly engaged audiences on social media," Opendorse owner Blake Lawrence told AL.com.
The Tide holds the two top spots.
"It tells us winning at all level of sports has a tremendous impact on engagement with their audience and the size of their audience," Lawrence said. When you combine winning with a traditional powerhouse like Alabama, and an Alabama fan base, which engages at a rate that is higher than most fan bases in the country, Alabama’s in position to attract this new generation of recruit."
File photo
How it works
Opendorse reviewed Twitter, Facebook and Instagram data from July 17, 2018 to July 17 2019 of college athletes.
The list is based on most engagement, which is the number of likes, re-tweets and comments on content shared by each athlete.
Other factors include engagement rate - which is the percentage of the athlete’s followers engage with that content - and growth, which is how many new followers athletes added in that time frame.
The average athlete added 15,000 followers in that time frame. Alabama's Tua Tagovailoa added 256,000.
The average athlete posts six times a month. Alabama's Jerry Jeudy posts 15 times a month.
Here are the top 18 most engaged college football players on social media.
Richard Shiro
No. 18 Travis Etienne
School: Clemson
Position: Running back
Engagements: 257,912
Engagement rate: 9.42 percent
Followers: 60,432
Reach: 2,204,917
Elaine Thompson
No. 17 Jacob Eason
School: Washington
Position: Quarterback
Engagements: 260,914
Engagement rate: 5.79 percent
Followers: 230,900
Reach: 4,530,020
Eric Gay
No. 16 Collin Johnson
School: Texas
Position: Wide receiver
Engagements: 261,621
Engagement rate: 16.04 percent
Followers: 70,059
Reach: 2,074,829
No. 15 JK Dobbins
School: Ohio State
Position: Running back
Engagements: 326,594
Engagement rate: 16.16 percent
Followers: 108,695
Reach: 2,878,964
Associated Press
No. 14 Xavier Thomas
School: Clemson
Position: Defensive end
Engagements: 330,198
Engagement rate: 6.07 percent
Followers: 58,019
Reach: 6,618,281
Getty Images
No. 13 Grant Delpit
School: LSU
Position: Safety
Engagements: 344,499
Engagement rate: 11.36 percent
Followers: 81,429
Reach: 3,229,776
Jenn Finch
No. 12 D'Andre Swift
School: Georgia
Position: Running back
Engagements: 420,836
Engagement rate: 12.15 percent
Followers: 120,296
Reach: 3,016,964
Sue Ogrocki
No. 11 Kenneth Murray
School: Oklahoma
Position: Linebacker
Engagements: 423,082
Engagement rate: 8.44 percent
Followers: 40,597
Reach: 4,861,984
MLive.com
No. 10 Donovan Peoples-Jones
School: Michigan
Position: Receiver
Engagements: 433,393
Engagement rate: 9.51 percent
Followers: 108,776
Reach: 4,226,705
AL.com
No. 9 Trevon Diggs
School: Alabama
Position: Defensive back
Engagements: 437,515
Engagement rate: 4.55 percent
Followers: 109,303
Reach: 7,944,493
Jay LaPrete
No. 8 Justin Fields
School: Ohio State
Position: Quarterback
Engagements: 587,675
Engagement rate: 11.08 percent
Followers: 254,786
Reach: 7,181,755
Jay LaPrete
No. 7 Chase Young
School: Ohio State
Position: Defensive end
Engagements: 615,676
Engagement rate: 9.26 percent
Followers: 83,462
Reach: 7,602,896
Chris Carlson
No. 6 Trevor Lawrence
School: Clemson
Position: Quarterback
Engagements: 781,619
Engagement rate: 6.56 percent
Followers: 382,500
Reach: 15,611,450
Sue Ogrocki
No. 5 CeeDee Lamb
School: Oklahoma
Position: Receiver
Engagements: 939,255
Engagement rate: 7.92 percent
Followers: 148,129
Reach: 9,686,044
Sue Ogrocki
No. 4 Jalen Hurts
School: Oklahoma
Position: Quarterback
Engagements: 946,144
Engagement rate: 19.14 percent
Followers: 197,504
Reach: 6,715,136
Joshua L. Jones
No. 3 Jake Fromm
School: Georgia
Position: Quarterback
Engagements: 1,451,304
Engagement rate: 11.43 percent
Followers: 511,904
Reach: 11,579,023
Chris Carlson
No. 2 Jerry Jeudy
School: Alabama
Position: Receiver
Engagements: 1,645,742
Engagement rate: 9.63 percent
Followers: 223,873
Reach: 18,313,958
Vasha Hunt
No. 1 Tua Tagovailoa
School: Alabama
Position: Quarterback
Engagements: 2,507,465
Engagement rate: 11.74 percent
Followers: 579,006
Reach: 23,884,384
AL.com file photo
Extra points
Both Tua Tagovailoa and Jerry Jeudy see the majority of their engagements on Instagram, ranking first and second in all of college football on that specific social platform
The Bama duo slips to second and third, respectively, on Twitter where former Tide quarterback Jalen Hurts ranks No. 1 in all of college football.
Trevon Diggs ranks 10th on both Twitter and Instagram, but ranks higher in "overally" average engagement because many players, in general, spend more time on one platform versus the other.
Terell Lewis ranks 30th on the overall list.
Jeudy leads the country in video views on social media. Tagovailoa ranks third in video views. Diggs ranks ninth in the category.
Alabama is the only school with three players in the top 10.
Diggs is the second-ranked defensive player behind only Ohio State's Chase Young, who ranks seventh.
Tagovailoa has 900,000 more average engagements than Jeudy.
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