Update: I really don’t like Allen Pinkett’s chances of remaining as Notre Dame’s radio analyst for football. Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick issued a swift rebuttal to Pinkett’s statement about the Irish needing “a couple criminals” on their team.

“Allen Pinkett’s suggestion that Notre Dame needs more ‘bad guys’ on its football team is nonsense,” Swarbrick said in a statement. “Of course, Allen does not speak for the University, but we could not disagree more with this observation.”

*******

This goes beyond stupid.

Allen Pinkett, the former Notre Dame star, is the school’s current radio analyst. However, perhaps not for long after these comments.

Pinkett stepped in it big time this morning during an interview with Dan McNeil and Matt Spiegel this morning on WSCR-AM 670 in Chicago.

From the station’s site:

Notre Dame has had its fair share of off-the-field incidents over the past few seasons.

But for Fighting Irish radio analyst and former NFLer Allen Pinkett, he’s not concerned with off-the-field issues – as long as the person involved is a good enough football player.

“I’ve always felt like, to have a successful team, you gotta have a few bad citizens on the team,” Pinkett told The McNeil and Spiegel Show. “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. I think Notre Dame is growing because maybe they have some guys that are doing something worthy of a suspension, which creates edge on the football team. You can’t have a football team full of choir boys. You get your butt kicked if you have a team full of choir boys. You gotta have a little bit of edge, but the coach has to be the dictator and ultimate ruler.”

McNeil and Spiegel actually gave Pinkett a chance to clarify his statement. Surely, he isn’t endorsing that Notre Dame recruit players of questionable character?

Pinkett only dug a deeper hole.

“I absolutely meant that,” he said. “Chemistry is so important on a football team. You have to have a couple of bad guys that sorta teeter on that edge to add to the flavor of the guys that are going to always do right. … You look at the teams that have one in the past. They always have a couple of criminals.”

Those comments aren’t going to go over very well at Notre Dame. At the very least, I’d expect Pinkett to issue some sort of apology. At the worst, he has called his last game for Notre Dame.