Notre Dame DT to miss UMass game after tweets critical of coaches

Notre Dame defensive tackle Jay Hayes will miss the Fighting Irish’s game Saturday against UMass thanks to tweets critical of his coaches.

Hayes made the tweets, now deleted, late Tuesday night.

#NotreDame DT Jay Hayes: no stranger to Twitter controversy. Doesn’t seem pleased with lack of playing time. pic.twitter.com/xDlvKRe9uE

— Tyler James (@TJamesNDI) September 23, 2015

Thursday, Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly said why Hayes wouldn’t be making the trip to UMass. And it’s hard to argue with Kelly’s reasoning.

[Check out Dr. Saturday on Tumblr for things you won’t see on the blog]

“There has to be responsibility as it relates to social media and you have to think before you hit send,” Kelly said via BlueandGold.com. “What you have to do is knock on my door instead of hitting the send button. These are good lessons to be learned. If he has a job at Google and he talks about his boss that way, he’s probably not going to have a job the next day. You try to use them as life lessons.

“You don’t say, ‘Hey, I’m going to take Twitter away from you.’ You tell him, ‘You need to make better decisions next time or it’s going to impact you when you leave here at Notre Dame.’ We have players that want to get on the field. I had a conversation with Jay. He understands the mistake he made.”

Hayes appeared in two games for Notre Dame in 2014 after the team removed his redshirt. He hasn’t played so far in 2015, possibly leading to his frustration.

He was a four-star recruit in the class of 2014 and the No. 14 defensive tackle in the country according to Rivals.

For more Notre Dame news, visit BlueandGold.com.