Photo courtesy of Clark Stanton
By Dominic Feo
The University of South Florida’s football team is going through a historic season, already winning as many games (6) before November as the team finished with its last two seasons. While that success has made its own headlines, the team’s social media presence is also getting its own spotlight.
When senior digital communication and multimedia journalism major Clark Stanton isn’t driving over an hour from Parrish to take his classes at USF St. Petersburg, he is at Raymond James Stadium, recording USF football games from the sidelines as a social media intern for USF Athletics.
Before USF’s game against the University of Florida on Sept. 6, Stanton learned he would be recording with a device he knew very well.
“My boss [Director of Digital and Social Content Carlee Calfee] texts in the group chat, ‘Does anyone still have a DS? Just out of curiosity,’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, of course,’” Stanton told The Crow’s Nest. “I’m a gamer, I still have my DS from when I was like, 12.”
While other interns recorded the game on cameras and phones, Stanton brought his Nintendo 3DS XL Mario and Luigi Dreamland edition console to Gainesville. When the Bulls kicked the game-winning field goal to upset Florida 18-16, the nation’s eyes were on USF’s social media, which peered into the Bulls’ success through Stanton’s 3DS.
“We filmed the game-winning field goal on it, got all the theatrics post-game, threw it together and it did well on social media,” Stanton said.
Stanton’s definition of “well” was millions of combined views from ESPN, Overtime, Yahoo Sports, CBS Sports, Barstool Sports and Bleacher Report‘s reposts of USF Athletics’ video on Instagram. USF Athletics had struck an engagement gold mine, and they intended to keep digging.
Two weeks later, Stanton filmed USF’s following home game against S.C. State with a Ring Doorbell. Stanton, who suggested the idea, still refers to it as his “personal favorite.”
“It was interactive, it was so fun having players and [Head coach] Alex Golesh come up and ring the doorbell and have the sound play, I think that was really, really fun,” Stanton said.
The video was once again reposted by Yahoo Sports and USF Athletics got its first repost from the Instagram account FieldRush and “X” account “nocontextcollegefootball” with over 200 thousand followers on their respective platforms.
The first device that Stanton needed to purchase was a trail cam, which he used to record USF’s 54-26 home win against Charlotte on Oct. 3.
“It was like 65-70 bucks, which I don’t mind at all,” Stanton said. “One day, when I own a house, I’m going to set it up somewhere in my backyard.”
Stanton recorded the Bulls’ next game at the University of North Texas on Oct. 10 with a Nokia cellphone. After Bleacher Report reposted the video, ESPN and CBS made posts on Instagram showcasing all the devices he had used to that point. ESPN’s post generated over four million views.
Since Sept. 6, Stanton’s USF Athletics posts and reposts from other accounts have amassed over 17 million views across all social media platforms.
For USF’s latest home bout against Florida Atlantic on Oct. 18, Stanton recorded with a device not even intended to export footage. Trying to compile footage from a car backup camera was Stanton’s hardest task to date.
After attempts to attach a DVR to several backup cameras fell through, Stanton found a model with a DVR built in. Needing to capture the audio with a separate microphone, he ran into a unique problem.
“Most of the time when you’re [syncing audio] in any sort of film industry, you do a clap test before you start rolling,” Stanton said. “[You] can’t really do that when it’s a Byrum Brown touchdown clip, it’s a kind of a ‘Quickly press recording and film it.’”
The stars on the various recording devices have been Brown and the other USF players who get a kick out of seeing what Stanton and USF Athletics have in store for them next.
“This series wouldn’t be the series without the players, there’s some guys who love the camera and love to figure out what it is for this week and come up to me immediately, pregame like, ‘Alright, what do we got?’” Stanton said.
It is hard to find someone who loves the camera more than sophomore offensive lineman Tyreek Major, who has dropped numerous pop culture references throughout the series. Mentioning everything from Drake to Bigfoot, Major told The Crow’s Nest that showing off his meme knowledge in the series reminds him of his childhood.
“I was one of those kids back in middle school, elementary school, even high school, just saying memes and just having fun, I think they’re all funny,” Major said.
Stanton credited the absurd nature of the series for capturing the attention of college-aged students and USF football student-athletes.
“Someone scrolls on their feed and they’re like, ‘All right, what are we doing? We’re recording on backup cameras now? This is ridiculous,’” he said.
To watch what Stanton uses to record the Bulls’ Nov. 6 matchup versus the University of Texas at San Antonio, students can claim tickets on the USF Athletics website or tune into ESPN at 7:30 p.m.
