A few weeks ago, new reports arose of former Penn State head coach Joe Paterno having knowledge of the sexual abuse at the school and chose to ignore it to focus on the football season. Earlier this week, current head coach James Franklin said some of the schools in their division are recruiting negatively against the school because of it and athletic director Sandy Barbour seems to agree.
Once these new allegations came down, Franklin said that he spent an entire day telling recruits that the school wouldn’t face any more NCAA sanctions, which hurt their recruiting process a few years ago.
Barbour spoke with reporters and she seemed to express the same frustrations as her head coach.
“Recruiting across the country, it’s crazy,” Barbour told Scout.com. “And coaches will use absolutely any crack. They’ll create their own crack — I’m not talking about drugs — and that’s what’s happened in this case.”
Franklin accused multiple Big Ten East teams of negatively recruiting against the Nittany Lions, naming Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State as well as Notre Dame. Sandy Barbour said that this is a problem in their conference and nationwide as well and something needs to be done about it.
“For someone, anyone, to try to plant in the mind of a 17-year-old that you don’t want to go to Penn State because they’re gonna get hit with the death penalty or there are gonna be more sanctions is not only untrue, but disingenuous and I feel a real slap in the face to this profession,” Barbour said.
The Nittany Lions finally landed their first 2017 commit in three months when three-star safety Brelin Falson-Walden committed to the team.
