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Twitter battle: Charlie Strong's #letsride versus Kevin Sumlin's #YESSIR

The hashtag battle for Texas has begun.

By Wescott Eberts
Erich Schlegel

There's a battle going on for the state of Texas in recruiting that has spilled over to Twitter, where the Texas A&M Aggies have been dominating the Texas Longhorns in recruiting tweeting, just as they have on the actual recruiting trail.

For some time now, Aggies have have been launched into various states of ecstasy when head coach Kevin Sumlin sends out his signature "#YESSIR" tweet to indicate that a new pledge has added their name to the A&M commitment list.

Not to be outdone, new Texas head coach Charlie Strong has also taken to Twitter to offer his own signature hashtag, first unveiled over the weekend with the commitment of Huntsville offensive tackle Ronnie Major, a former Baylor commit:

Then, on Monday, Strong acknowledged the commitment of Rowlett defensive end Charles Omenihu with another tweet:

Putting the T back in Texas is a reference to a new shirt that Strong has had made for his team, meaning that he wants toughness, trust, togetherness, and teamwork.

The Longhorns have fallen noticeably behind in social media efforts across the board. Former head coach Mack Brown has become a prolific tweeter in the months since he resigned, but mostly tweeted out inspirational quotes while he was still in charge at Texas and didn't have any way to indicate when he received a new commitment.

Strong has now jumped into the game, a relatively important one to inspire some excitement in the fan base and to provide a public statement for the recruit to make the pledge seem more significant.

Since everything between the Longhorns and Aggies is a competition, which hashtag is better? It's more fun to say yessir, but let's ride has that element of togetherness and teamwork that Strong wants to instill in his football team. And there's also a forward momentum to it, a look towards the future.

Texas has a lot of ground to make up with Texas A&M on the recruiting trail, but at least Strong is stepping up his Twitter game to compete with Sumiln, something that Brown never even attempted, perhaps to his detriment.

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