Throughout the late 1980s and early 90s, Notre Dame was a perennial NCAA football powerhouse. Since then, not so much. The Fighting Irish have mixed in a few successful seasons over the past 20 years but have been unable to maintain their status as one of the best teams in the country. They have not won more than seven games in a season since 2006, but current commentator and former Notre Dame player Allen Pinkett has an idea for how the team can return to prominence.
“I’ve always felt like, to have a successful team, you gotta have a few bad citizens on the team,” Pinkett said during an interview with The McNeil and Spiegel Show on 670 The Score. “You look at the teams that have won in the past. They always have a couple of criminals.
“I mean, that’s how Ohio State used to win all the time. They would have two or three guys that were criminals. That just adds to the chemistry of the team.”
Back in 2004, Paul Hornung said Notre Dame needed to lower its academic standards. Now they need more criminals? I guess the first thing we should mention is that Notre Dame has had problems with the law like many other schools in the country. A player was arrested just last season for a DUI, and the team went 8-5. So maybe it’s not that simple.
Perhaps Pinkett is trying to say that criminals are tougher? Or maybe he was just trying to take a shot at other programs? I’m just trying to figure out where he could have possibly been going with this argument, but I don’t see how having players in handcuffs “adds to the chemistry” in a college football locker room. Pinkett is a two-time All-American, so he must know more than we do.
Thanks to Deadspin for transcribing the quotes
