Dantonio and Meyer Deny Using “Anti-Penn State” Rhetoric on Recruiting Trail

Mark Dantonio and Urban Meyer both shared some feelings regarding a line of questioning at Big Ten Media Days. First, surprise and then strong denial.

About a month ago, Penn State football head coach James Franklin came out and said that other schools still used the Jerry Sandusky scandal against his program in recruiting high school athletes. He specifically named Michigan State and Ohio State, among a few others, as schools that don't have to deal with these kinds of issues.

This prompted the line of questioning at Big Ten Media Day, "Is your school using negative recruiting tactics against Penn State?"

When asked about the claim, both Meyer and Dantonio were surprised to hear about the story and then strongly denied the claim from Franklin.

From the ESPN report, Dantonio said: "...from my standpoint, I have not said anything negative about Penn State, and hopefully our coaches have not as well. So I was surprised to read that. I don't know what happens out there on the road completely. But it's not our M.O., and that's not how we do business."

Meyer shared similar sentiment, he seemed caught off guard by the question and said that it was "the first time he's heard of it."

Franklin cleared the air a little bit regarding his comments a month ago telling Fox Sports: "I never said that any of those schools are the ones doing the negative recruiting against us. They're not. There is one other particular school, but I didn't name who that was."

Franklin also mentions how his quotes that seem to accuse the schools he listed were taken out of context in a 30+ minute interview.