What is Negative Recruiting?

When college fans from different schools are talking about recruiting on Internet message boards, one of the most popular subjects that seems to come up is negative recruiting. Negative recruiting happens when two schools are trying to recruit the same player. One school, instead of trying to sell their school, will talk about the down falls of the other school that they are recruiting again. These Internet posters love to accuse certain schools of it and the fans from that school will always deny it.

But when the negative recruiting accusation does come up for schools, it usually does happen. There are certain schools that are known when competing against other programs that they will throw out negative information about the school in order to help land that recruit with an athletic scholarship. If you are going through the recruiting process, it is better to have coaches that sell the positives of their school instead of ripping on the negatives of another program. Here are some of the main areas that coaches will negative recruit about.

The first and one important is the head coach. This could go one of two ways. Negative recruiting could come out about the coach if the team has been having a bad season and there are rumors around that this coach will be getting fired. Similar rumors will also come out if the coach is one of the best at that level and may have the chance to move up to a bigger school or the NFL. While it may be small, opposing coaches will remind players of the situation of the head coach at schools that they like.

In college football, there is an arms race because every school wants to have the best athletic facilities in the country. While there are about twenty schools ahead of many other programs in the country, some schools just have more money to spend on facilities. Those coaches may drop hints about another schools old weight room, lack of practice facility, or even stadium that is off campus and poorly attended by students.

Probably one of the biggest areas that will be mentioned is the fact that they will tell you all about the other players that the school you like is recruiting. They will make sure to mention that these football recruits or basketball recruits play the same position as you and may be rated higher than you by Rivals.com. This is a tough situation for you to be in because you always want to know that you are the highest rated recruit they have at that position. While it rarely happens that way, it would be nice to see the school stop recruiting players at that position.

Location could be another area because the other schools you are looking at may be thousands of miles away and across the country. There have been many football recruits that have grown up on the east coast and ended up attending USC. Do you think the other programs recruiting them failed to mention the distance? I highly doubt that, especially with how important football recruiting has gotten lately.

There are a lot of situations where negative recruiting does occur. Here are is a few more snippets about accused negative recruiting from other articles:

• But the debate quickly shifted to negative recruiting as Clemson freshman Jamie Cumbie told The Post and Courier newspaper of Charleston, S.C. that, “the coaches at Notre Dame sent some bad letters ripping Clemson after I committed here” and claiming that Notre Dame, “said Clemson has a horrible education.” Uh oh. Weis, clearly infuriated by the accusation, responded with a statement not only debunking Cumbie’s claim but also taking a half-handed shot at Clemson, stating, “this is an obvious case of negative reporting against Notre Dame by other institutions. Maybe they should look in the mirror.” (Read the full article here)
• Oregon coach Mike Bellotti said he’d welcome a probe by the Pac-10 into allegations of unethical recruiting leveled at the Ducks, as well as other schools, by Washington coach Rick Neuheisel. `Absolutely,’ Bellotti said Monday. Joining the fray after a couple of days away from work, Bellotti answered back at Neuheisel on Monday, though not going far beyond a carefully worded statement released by the athletic department’s media services office. In both that document, and his other comments Monday, Bellotti didn’t name the Washington coach. Asked specifically, though, if he and Neuheisel have discussed the allegations or had talked about recruiting in the past couple of months, Bellotti said no. (Read the full article here)
• College recruiting has always been a tough, frustrating, and sometimes dirty trade. Schools often use negative recruiting tactics to battle other schools in the recruiting wars (just ask Kirk Ferentz). Negative recruiting tactics include making up stories about coaches and programs and lying about the other teams’ style of play. Kansas State, for example, is the undisputed king of the negative recruiting tactic. (Read the full article here)