Back in August of 2012, Sport Illustrated’sRick Reilly wrote one of the most infamous hit pieces about Notre Dame football in recent memory. It set the blueprint that many writers have tried to follow and/or copy over the last decade and a half. To be fair, however, I never thought Reilly was trying be a click whore — even with all of his hyperbole and bluster.
I can’t say the same about the long line of others that came after him. Whether it was a television segment or an article, some member of the sports
media break out the Reilly recipe to invoke the almighty name of Notre Dame to the pleasure of simple-minded haters and to the fury of the Fighting Irish faithful.
The tactic generally works every single time.
Enter Matt Hayes from USA Today.
Matt wrote this about the Indiana Hoosiers just a week ago:
So… Indiana is doing just fine scheduling every cupcake in the bakery to make the CFP, but when it comes to Notre Dame and their schedule — it’s a god damn holy war.
Look, Matt Hayes is not only a total tool — he’s a complete bullshit artist. We really don’t need to go point by point with everything that he’s wrong about or everything he’s crying about, because it’s pretty much 99% of what he typed out and hit send in the post editor. Do you know how I know for sure that this might be the dumbest thing written about Notre Dame over the last decade? It’s because known Notre Dame detractors (or haters if you will) are also calling him out for this nonsense.
But again… that’s what this latest article from Hayes was supposed to do. It wasn’t supposed to be subjective and hold any facts — it’s to get you pissed off and clicking on the article. So it worked — I guess?
Here’s the thing though… Hayes is outed now as a click baiter/rage baiter writer. That article was such trash, nothing he writes from here on out can ever be looked at the same. He got down in the sewer and you can’t get that smell of shit off so easily. He tried following the Rick Reilly blueprint but forgot that he’s NOT Rick Reilly.
In fact, he should probably send Reilly a royalty check for his cut of the $643 the article made him — hell, all of these writers that are taking this route should.
