Before the Manti Te'o situation brought the term 'catfish' into the national spotlight, Michigan football coach Brady Hoke decided to teach his team a lesson in social media awareness by hiring an outside consultant to dupe 20 of his players by using a fake online profile.
Yes, you read that correctly, Michigan football actively 'catfished' its own players.
The Wolverines had scheduled a meeting with the football team to discuss responsible use of social media months before the Manti Te'o episode became public. In order to drive the point home, Hoke decided to make an example out of a handful of his players.
"Before (the speaker) came in, we gave him 20 Facebook accounts of guys on our team," Michigan Live quoted Hoke as saying earlier this month while speaking with hundreds of the state's high school football coaches. "He had his assistant — she tried to talk to our guys. 'Hey, what are ya doin'?' Whatever it might be.
"Well, two months later we're in a team meeting and we're on the topic of what you put out there in the cyber universe ... you should have seen 115 guys when that young lady — she was hot, now; a very, very nice looking young lady — when she walked into that meeting room, and the guys looking at each other."
Hoke said the goal of the hoax was to teach his players about the potential dangers of social media and he hopes the players learned a lesson.
Ryan Carreon is a web editor for DeseretNews.com. E-mail him at rcarreon@desnews.com.