Negative recruiting is a given with college sports. The NCAA can’t do anything about it, otherwise it would have tried by now.
If the NCAA has thrown up a white flag trying to police how coaches interact with recruits on Twitter, how would it ever successfully put the clamps on negative recruiting?
All of which makes it peculiar that Penn State athletic director Sandy Barbour and football coach James Franklin made a crusade against negative recruiting during the recent Big Ten football media days. Who’s to say Franklin or his staff members never say unflattering things about their conference rivals during the recruiting process?
The allegations from Barbour and Franklin stem from the reaction of court documents released recently involving the Jerry Sandusky child molestation case in which Joe Paterno reportedly knew of the wrongdoing but did nothing about it.
Franklin told a group of reporters at the Big Ten media day: “A month ago, I’m in Chicago at a wedding of one of my former players and the most recent things (about Paterno) come up. I spend all Friday and Saturday on the phone talking to all of our players because other schools are contacting them and telling them the NCAA is going to get involved again and impose more sanctions.”
The situation drew this reaction from Barbour: “There’s different levels of negative recruiting. There’s taking facts and making sure that, instead of espousing your positives, espousing someone else’s negatives. What I was specifically referring to was making stuff up, and things that are not factual. That’s a fact, that that is happening. We’re hearing it from prospective student-athletes, and we’ll handle it.”
Penn State unfortunately will forever be stained by the Sandusky case and the now unfavorable image of Paterno, who throughout his coaching career was revered by opposing coaches. With a new generation of coaches, and young players who identify Penn State mostly with this scandal, Paterno’s once-proud program is open season. It will be that way until Franklin is able to help the Nittany Lions forge a new identity. Winning cures all.
None of the opposing coaches will admit they negatively recruit which makes it odd that a reporter at the media days actually asked Ohio State coach Urban Meyer and Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio if they or their staffs have negatively recruited against Penn State.
“That’s an awfully strong accusation,” Meyer said. “We do just fine in recruiting to not have to worry about that stuff.”
The competition will always try to build on the other’s misfortunes. Some are ruthless while doing so. Like it or not, that’s part of the recruiting game. It will never change unless the NCAA passes a rule to record every conversation between a coach and recruit.
For Barbour and especially Franklin (no stranger to the recruiting game) to cry foul, shows the Penn State program will take a while to return to solid ground now that it has served its NCAA penalty and is back to a full 85 scholarships.
Nothing positive can come out of the negative-recruiting complaints made by the Nittany Lions’ brass. It paints a picture of Barbour and Franklin fighting their way from out of a corner in despair. And what happens now if one of Franklin’s assistants says something negative about a Big Ten or MAC foe, for example, while on the recruiting trail? Hypocritical?
For as long as recruiting has existed, coaches make it a point to tell recruits about the question marks involved with a rival program: The other coach may be fired, retired or gone soon. … The NCAA is investigating that program. … A lot of players have transferred out of that school. … Those guys over there are known to not coach up their players. … They don’t have the facilities or weight room we have. …
So on and so on.
What should be done about negative recruiting? The NCAA will not crack down on it, so coaches and administrators should refrain from publicly whining about it. They should use that energy toward building a winning culture and developing the talent they have. Recruits and their parents want results from coaches, not for them to react to what others are saying.
Perhaps when on top again, Penn State’s coaches will talk down about their rivals while on the recruiting trail (if they are not already doing so). The recruiting game, as negative as it might become, will live on no matter what.
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