Notre Dame Football: Irish accused of questionable recruiting tactics

Notre Dame football is, allegedly, using some questionable negative recruiting tactics to scare recruits away from the Michigan Wolverines.

Michigan-based radio talk show host Sam Webb opined that Notre Dame is getting dirty with its recruiting tactics. In order to sway potential candidates away from attending Michigan, one of the Notre Dame coaches is reportedly using scare tactics. Coaches dissing another school is nothing new in the recruiting game–what’s hilarious is what the coach (allegedly) said.

The reported coach threatened a potential Michigan recruit with the creepiest bogeyman of all–Detroit’s crime rate. According to Webb:

"Young man, parents of young man, you gotta be aware over there in Ann Arbor. Have you seen the crime rates in Detroit? Have you seen the murder rates, the violent crime rates in Detroit? … It just might not be a safe environment in Ann Arbor."

While this tactic might terrify nervous helicopter mothers, it’s just silly. Geography tells us that the University of Michigan, located in Ann Arbor, is more than an hour away from Detroit. The only reason this might be worrisome is if the mayor of Detroit decides to start busing violent criminals into Ann Arbor. (Hey, the mayor of Detroit is a Notre Dame fan.)

But crikey. If you are worried about the crime rates within an hour of any college campus, you couldn’t send your kid anywhere. And honestly, it’s not like no one on the Notre Dame campus is innocent of any wrongdoing, despite the presence of Touchdown Jesus.

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So while I applaud the smack talkin’ effort, Notre Dame, come up with something better if you want to deter recruits. Or at the very least, be careful which recruits you choose to spread your negative recruiting toward. Otherwise you might end up as the morning punchline on the internet.