The Sock 'Em, Bust 'Em Board Because that's our custom

Hidden benefits

Best part of the bowl experience this season? A valid reason to follow the always-entertaining @RusselAthBowl.

College football Twitter is pretty good. Bowl Twitter is great. Nobody does either better than the people playing host to West Virginia and Miami.

“I’m not sure what to capitalize on yet,” Repchak said. “I’ve been looking forward to the West Virginia fan base since maybe November-ish, when we knew something like this was possible based on watching previous games. Me just being present in the college football Twitter world, I knew that it was going to be a vibrant and colorful fan base that was going to make for some interesting conversations.”

The Russell Athletic Bowl account was born in April 2009 as the Champs Sports Bowl account. It was not the first of its kind, but it is perhaps the best and easily among the most popular. It has more than 26,200 followers, which bests the Orange, Fiesta and Sugar bowls and barely trails the Cotton. Those are New Year’s Six games.

Repchak takes this — well, he doesn’t take much about it seriously, which is why it works so well. But he’s committed to the project, to why it works and to the style he and his teammates have established that has been studied and used as the model for so many other games now.

A few years back, a writer covering a regular-season UCF-Houston game noted bowl scouts from the Fiesta and Russell Athletic bowls were at the game. “Yeah and SOMEONE didn’t bring enough chips,” Repchak replied.