WVU's Rodriguez ignores free speech concerns after banning 'TikTok dancing'

Fire.org is a group focused on protecting free speech anywhere it might be challenged

They're not happy with West Virginia football coach Rich Rodriguez for banning his players

from dancing on the social media app TikTok. Thursday, Fire.org sent a second letter to the

university and posted it online, demanding a response from school administrators and calling

on Coach Rodriguez to acknowledge his ban on players dancing on TikTok violates their First

Amendment rights to free speech. The controversy started March 10th when Rodriguez answered a

reporter's question about the team's social media policies. I mean, they're going to be on it

so I'm not banning them from, I'm just banning them from dancing on it. It's like, look

we try to have a hard edge, whatever, and you're in there in your tights

dancing on TikTok ain't quite the image of our program that I want

If that sounds a little old school, well, Rodriguez has been coaching college football for 18 seasons

He has 136 career wins. He's beginning his second stint as coach at West Virginia and says he's allowed to create rules for his program to get his players to focus

20 years from now they want to be sitting in their pajamas in their basement eating Cheetos and watching TikTok or whatever the hell they can go at it Smoking cannabis whatever I mean knock yourself out But the whole focus can be on winning football games

How about let's win the football game and not worry about winning the TikTok

The university has yet to publicly respond to fire.org's complaints or their letters

We reached out to both parties with an interview request but have not heard back

Thursday morning on college football yst Greg McIlroy's podcast Rodriguez continued to make light of his ban

A lot of folks made a big deal about our guys, me so-called banning them from dancing on TikTok

They couldn't dance, so it was embarrassing. That was first off, but I'm like, if they could make money being good at something

I want to make money being good at football. So how about let's get good at football? Because I don't know if they're going to make money

being good dancing on TikTok, not from what I've seen. Fire.org may be taking a page

out of the 1984 Kevin Bacon movie Footloose, but to date, there have been no public complaints

from Mountaineers players about not being able to dance on social media

And Coach Rodriguez has not publicly punished any players for cutting loose on video

This whole controversy could see another twist this weekend, and Coach could get his wish if the national TikTok ban that became law last year

goes into effect before a U.S.-based buyer can close a deal for the social media site

For Straight Arrow News, I'm Chris Francis