Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/705594
BY LOU SOMOGYI S ophomore defensive lineman Jay Hayes made a splash at Notre Dame last September. Unfortunately, it came from a massive belly flop into hot water. On Sept. 23, three days before the home game against UMass, Hayes sent out two tweets that expressed his dissatisfaction with the Notre Dame coaching staff and ostensibly his im‑ pending transfer to another school. Read the first: "Gotta get this natty and I'm out." (The "natty" referred to the national title aspiration in 2015.) He followed with a second: "When a coach stops coaching you … that's when you jus (sic) gotta move on." Hayes later deleted the posts from his account — but not before the Fighting Irish staff saw them air pub‑ licly and create a bit of a brouhaha. It resulted in Hayes' suspension from being with the team at the next game. "There has to be responsibility as it relates to social media, and you have to think before you hit send," head coach Brian Kelly said the day after the tweets were posted. "What you have to do is you have to knock on my door instead of hitting the send button, and these are good lessons to be learned. … "If he has a job at Google and he talks about his boss that way, you're probably not going to have a job the next day. "You don't say, 'Hey, I'm going to take Twitter away from you.' You just tell him, 'Look, you need to make a better decision next time or it's going to impact you when you leave here at Notre Dame.'" Hayes appears to be in it for the long haul at Notre Dame despite the disappointment of redshirting as a sophomore to preserve a fifth season of eligibility in 2018. The plan was to have that happen in his freshman year in 2014, but injuries ravaged the line so much he was forced into ac‑ tion in the final games far before his time. This spring, listed at 6‑3, 285 pounds, Hayes made another sur‑ prising transition. Originally consid‑ ered Sheldon Day's heir at three‑tech‑ A NEW 'END GAME' Junior Jay Hayes makes transition along defensive line and in attitude