College football teams leaned into Halloween with their postgame social media trolling on Saturday, Oct. 31, and ESPN rounded up the best of it in its Week 9 trolls column. Utah led the list after a 49-25 win over Cincinnati that kept the Utes unbeaten.
Utah's graphic showed an eerie, cracked-open door in a red glow, with only football gloves visible in the room behind it and a battered can of Skyline Chili on the floor, a nod to Cincinnati's best-known food. The caption read, "There's nowhere left to run." The post fit the game: Utah led 42-6 at halftime, according to KSL, and Elijah "Scooby" Davis returned an interception for a touchdown to extend the Utes' pick-six streak to 23 straight seasons.
Other teams joined in. Iowa beat Wisconsin 30-0 and posted a tombstone engraved with the score and a Hawkeye perched on top, captioned "Buried the Badgers." ESPN noted that Wisconsin coach Luke Fickell is winless in four tries against Iowa, by an aggregate score of 124-16.
South Carolina beat Oklahoma 42-25 in Norman, gaining 521 yards, and joked about Sooners fans leaving early with a post that said, "Wow, there are a lot of people in this Spirit Halloween!" Syracuse upset SMU 30-27 on a late touchdown pass from Steve Angeli to Noah Meyers, and the Orange's account wrote "Welcome to the Orange Pony Club," a play on the Chappell Roan song "Pink Pony Club" and SMU's mustang mascot. Duke posted a photo of a cross-eyed eagle after beating Boston College 47-2, a game in which Nate Sheppard ran for five touchdowns and the Eagles' only points came on a returned blocked extra point.
Trolling has become a regular part of the college football weekend, and teams' social media staffs often work as hard as their players on a big win. The Halloween timing gave this week an extra theme.
Sources: ESPN, KSL.com