NCAA Football Realignment: The 10 News-Breaking Twitter Feeds To Trust

The general population warms up to Twitter more and more everyday, but true sports fans have been latched to the popular form of social networking for awhile.

Reporters love to report. They love Twitter because it allows them to get information out there instantly, and with a time stamp, so the rest of the world knows it was their scoop.

The college football realignment story has been breaking at such lightning speeds daily that Twitter has become the hot spot for news. The Web sites and ESPN News simply can't compete to the click-and-it's-out-there immediacy of Twitter.

The issue is that every blogger has a Twitter feed and can put out their own "sources said" Tweet, just throwing stuff at the wall in hopes that something sticks.

We've found 10 Twitter feeds that have the legit stuff from the top sources that are plugged in the best to the situation.

10. Andy Katz

@espnandykatz

WHY FOLLOW: He is the man when it comes to college basketball, a dude that is plugged in all over the place. I'm a little tired of all his Obama connection stuff, though.

He's been following this from a hoops perspective, so just be aware that that's what his is mostly about. There's just enough expansion news and perspective on here to make the cut.

HOW COMMITTED TO TWITTER: 838 tweets

RECENT POST: "If Texas stays put then remaining Big 12 has more value than a 11 or 12 team PAC for TV. Larry Scott can't call move total success without UT"

9. Bruce Feldman

@bfeldmanespn

WHY FOLLOW: He's an ESPN TV guy and one of those guys that rarely misses a story in his beat crosshairs.

Feldman (on right) hasn't been breaking a ton of news on here, but has been fairly timely in passing on others' information.

He's not my favorite in this situation. He hasn't quite found his groove on Twitter yet.

HOW COMMITTED TO TWITTER: 850 tweets

RECENT POST: "RT @PeteThamelNYT: Big 12 AD confirms to the NY Times that Texas is on cusp of committing to Big 12: "The musical chairs will stop."

8. Tom Dienhart

@tomdienhart

WHY FOLLOW: Dienhart is the national college football writer for Rivals and Yahoo.

His Twitter feed has been a decent clearinghouse of information, though I find he uses his feed to link to stories more than to break news.

HOW COMMITTED TO TWITTER: 782 tweets

RECENT POST: "Orangebloods.com reports that Texas will commit to a 10 team Big 12."

7. Pete Thamel

@PeteThamelNYT

WHY FOLLOW: Thamel is the national college sports reporter for the New York Times.

He seems to be more of a recent Twitter convert—whether that's a result of a Times policy change or his own enlightenment, we're not sure.

Nevertheless, he's breaking news on here and still managing to digest and break down who's doing what to who.

HOW COMMITTED TO TWITTER: 844 tweets

RECENT POST: "Just got Dan Beebe on the phone very quickly. When asked if things look good, he said, 'We'll keep going.' Said he couldn't talk anymore."

6. Stewart Mandel

@SLMandel

WHY FOLLOW: Stewart Mandel is a college football writer for SI.com.

You won't find a lot of news here, mostly just commentary. Mandel is quite witty and clearly enjoys the catfights that are breaking out in the rush to break news here.

HOW COMMITTED TO TWITTER: 4,024 tweets

RECENT POST: "Ding, ding. RT @ChipBrownOB: Once Neb and CU left, a TV network saw realignment about to blow, stepped forward with plan to save B12."

5. College Football Talk

@CFTalk

WHY FOLLOW: This is the offshoot of Mike Florio's Pro Football Talk on NBCSports.com.

John Taylor and others do a solid job digesting the day's events and are masters of the instant update.

They have utilized Twitter to the max for awhile.

Again, a lot of links to CFT stuff. Not as much pure Twitter news-breaking as others.

HOW COMMITTED TO TWITTER: 5,552 tweets

RECENT POST: "Texas may grab Beebe's 'Hail Mary', save Big 12 from demise http://is.gd/cPbyl #collegefootball"

4. ESPN College Football Rumor Central

@cfbrumorcentral

WHY FOLLOW: This is the spot to find all of ESPN's rumor mongering on the expansion topic.

It's almost entirely links to ESPN.com stories, which isn't a real effective use of Twitter as a news-breaking tool. But, still, if you want information, this is a great first place to start.

HOW COMMITTED TO TWITTER: 465 tweets

RECENT POST: "Momentum -- and regents votes -- appears to be on the side of the SEC for Texas A&M. http://bit.ly/91Ofag"

3. Andy Staples

@Andy_Staples

WHY FOLLOW: Staples covers college football recruiting for Sports Illustrated.

He's conversational and populates his feed with equal parts news and pop culture nonsense.

He clearly replies to a ton of questions from followers; I only wish we knew what the initial question was. He clogs up his feed with responses with no context.

Hasn't broken a ton of news here, but retweets a lot of fresh stories.

HOW COMMITTED TO TWITTER: 995 tweets

RECENT POST: "RT @espn4d: Oklahoma State regents meeting scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. Missouri AD Mike Alden meeting with his coaches in an hour."

2. Joe Schad

@schadjoe

WHY FOLLOW: Schad is the college football insider on ESPN. He's a regular on "College Football Live" and is one of those tireless Rolodex guys.

His street cred has taken a little bit of a hit on the Big 12 stuff with Chip Brown breaking so much of the news.

In his defense, Schad's been tracking all the conferences whereas Brown has had the luxury to be at the epicenter in Texas country.

HOW COMMITTED TO TWITTER: 3,111 tweets

MOST RECENT POST: "OSUs Board of Regents have scheduled an expansion-related meeting for Wednesday at 3 p.m."

1. Chip Brown

@chipbrownob

WHY FOLLOW: Brown is seriously connected—in a made-man kind of way—in Austin.

He is the lead columnist for Orangebloods.com, a UT-focused site. He was with the Dallas Morning News for 10 years before going online. Plus, he's the host of a daily radio show on ESPN Austin.

Brown has been the star of the realignment story thus far, and it's not even close.

He broke the Nebraska news and has been one-to-two steps ahead of ESPN on most of the Big 12 expansion news, to the point where they are forced to source him (which we're not used to seeing from ESPN—usually, it's reported by some small guy but still attributed to an ESPN talking head confirming the report).

It would be shocking if Brown doesn't land a six-figure TV deal out of this career-making burst.

HOW COMMITTED TO TWITTER: 987 tweets

RECENT POST: "Got bumped off College Football Live today because the producer said, 'Joe Schad is now reporting what you're reporting.' (I love Joe BTW.)"