The story behind Baylor football’s puppet show
Alabama won National Signing Day, but Baylor should at least be 1A.
Credit three individuals who created what was the most successful signing day announcement strategy in 2019.
Now, why anyone needs an announcement strategy is a mystery, but at this point questions about questionable spending in college athletics simply do not have a place.
Baylor football announced its entire 2019 signing class on line via puppet shows. The short videos, all about 30 seconds and all set to music, became a point of viral curiosity since they went online beginning Wednesday.
Every signee has his own puppet video. Every puppet was custom made to resemble the player, and BU football coach Matt Rhule.
Per a Baylor spokesperson, the football program employs three people who handle social media content, etc. The trio of Addison Skaggs, Pat Clancy and Jordan Burgess were tasked to come up with some creative, and different, way to tell a story on national signing day.
They had already come up with a funny way to introduce the 2020 Baylor football schedule through Bob Ross paintings.
When the task was National Signing Day, Baylor grad Jeff Dunham’s name came up, and specifically his puppets. Someone mentioned the famous commercial of Kobe Bryant and LeBron James as played by puppets.
After the Bob Ross bit was a hit, Rhule was down with the puppet.
The creative trio then found a puppet maker in the United States that custom makes the furry dolls. Evelinka Puppets requires four pieces of information to make your own puppet.
If you are wondering if Baylor football has any money, each puppet runs about $250 per, and requires about one month to complete.
The creative team then began the process of making the videos, which is arduous and time consuming. They also had audio of every player saying something to fit into the video. The player was given a script, or he could ad lib and the producers worked around it.
Shortly after each video was put on social media, it became a hit and they were picked up by every major sports media outlet in the country.
Matt Rhule’s puppet signing day Twitter video has more than 150,000 views. The Twitter video of puppet Taye Mcwilliams has nearly 90,000 views.
The best belongs to guard Mose Jeffery. Nice hair.
Now that Baylor football has used Bob Ross and puppets, it’s time for Chip and Joanna.
