The 2016 college football season is over a month away but the Big Ten East rivalries are already getting messy.
A few weeks ago to the Reading Eagle, Penn State coach James Franklin insinuated that other schools — namely Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State and Notre Dame — used the recent news about the Jerry Sandusky scandal to recruit against Penn State.
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Then on Monday at Big Ten Media Days, Franklin brought up the "negative recruiting" accusations again. He was adamant negative recruiting happens everywhere and said the Nittany Lion staff has answered all the hard questions.
"Negative recruiting happens all over the country, everybody is dealing with it,'' Franklin said, per PennLive.com. "Obviously, for us, there's some sensitive subjects out there. Some people choose to use it and some people don't.
"What we're there to do is to try to talk about Penn State, focus on all the wonderful opportunities that Penn State offers — academically, athletically, socially, spiritually, those types of things — but also be able to answer the tough questions. We're probably in a position where we probably have to answer more tough questions. Fortunately, the families and the young men that have been open and said, 'Look, this is what we're hearing, can you help us with this?' We were able to answer those questions and also provide people that can help.''
Of course, word got around to the other coaches coaches. Tuesday, Michigan State's Mark Dantonio and Ohio State's Urban Meyer refuted any claims.
"I have not said anything negative about Penn State and hopefully our coaches have not have as well," Dantonio said on Tuesday. "I was surprised to read that. That's not our MO and that's not how we do business."
"Absolutely not," Meyer said. "That's the first time i've heard of it. I'll address it with coach Franklin if that is an issue. That's a pretty strong allegation that I had not heard yet. We got a great deal of respect for every school in our conference and we do just fine in recruiting to not worry about that."
And to add more drama to the situation...
Just got a DM from father of a 4* prospect. “We’ve visited (OSU, UM, MSU and PSU) - the ONLY person that negatively recruited was Franklin."
— Jeremy Birmingham (@Birm) July 26, 2016
Those are some pretty strong accusations from a coach who may or may not be negatively recruiting himself.
