Gophers Coach Brewster Now Tweeting

College coaches are always looking for an edge. Since the NCAA put limits on the number of phone calls they can make, coaches started texting athletes to get around the phone call limits.

When the NCAA wised up to that behavior, the coaches were again left to find legal ways to communicate with recruits as much as possible. Enter Twitter, which is growing in popularity among college coaches. One of the latest to discover the benefits of Twitter is Minnesota coach Tim Brewster.

Brewster started posting on Twitter March 23. He says he's having plenty of fun with it.

"To me, it's just another opportunity to sell our program. That's the biggest thing. Who knows if kids actually take a look at it? I think that today you need to stay on the cutting edge. If you're not on the cutting edge, then you're falling behind. We don't want to fall behind.

"We've updated them up on (TCF Bank Stadium) stuff," he said. "We've updated them on spring practice. It is a way to continuously get our message out there, so I was excited about it once I figured out how it worked. If they take it away, then you just go on to the next thing."

Surely, the NCAA isn't going to wait too long before they address this. For now, however, they say it's all good to them.

Twitter "is permissible for coaches to use," according to NCAA spokeswoman Jennifer Kearns.

"The Twitter feature of providing updates ("tweets") is not a direct communication with any particular individual or prospect," she said. "The legislation governing the other forms of communication via Twitter that are direct or one-on-one, private communication would be subject to 13.4.1.2. We have considered Twitter updates as similar to a blog update or update on any other Web site that is available for anyone in the public to view."

In the end, Brewster is absolutely right. Twitter is another way for him to get his message to fans, players, and potential recruits. Not only that, but it's not like it takes very long to update.

Now that he has a new stadium opening, Brewster doesn't have to be so far behind when recruiting elite athletes, and maybe something like this will give him an extra advantage he really hasn't had in his time at Minnesota.