There's a Twitter account named "Random College Athletes" that posts about exactly what its name says: random college athletes. Sometimes these posts will go viral when the athlete is more of a celebrity than a random college player, or, in the case of what happened Friday, when it's a notable doppelganger.
Enter JJ Watt, who saw the account tweet out the photo of Matt Betz, a defensive lineman for West Liberty University from 2008 to 2012. While the name, position, or school didn't stand out to Watt, the image certainly did, as he joked about.
“can I copy your homework?”
— JJ Watt (@JJWatt) June 25, 2021
“yeah, just change it up a little so it doesn’t look like you copied” https://t.co/O5NATLdW3t
The beauty of the internet kicked in shortly after Watt made the post as Betz appears to have made a Twitter account just so he could respond to such a post -- his bio says as much.
Yeah that's me 😂😂
— Matthew Betz (@MatthewBetz8) June 25, 2021
The Western Liberty football roster site only goes back as far as 2011, but it does confirm that this wasn't just a made up, or edited, post for clout. Here are some of the stats from Betz's 2010 season, which seems to be the most notable year he had on the team.
2010: Honorable Mention All-WVIAC. ...Saw action in all 10 games at nose tackle with 9 starts. ...6th on team with 35 total tackles. ...2nd on team with 16 assists. ...Led team with 9 tackles-for-loss and 2 fumble recoveries. ...2nd on team with 5 quarterback sacks. ...One forced fumble.
It may not be JJ Watt-level, but getting numbers like that while starting on a college team is pretty impressive. Besides, Betz says his skills stand out off of the gridiron.
Was all pro....at the buffet line
— Matthew Betz (@MatthewBetz8) June 26, 2021
