Dan Wolken created quite the stir on Monday night with a social media post revealing “bizarre scenes” in the Notre Dame locker room following the Fighting Irish’s loss to Ohio State in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game.
“Bizarre scenes from the Notre Dame locker room, players yelling at reporters, coaches warning people not to ask certain questions,” the USA Today columnist wrote on X. “Amateur hour.”
Bizarre scenes from the Notre Dame locker room, players yelling at reporters, coaches warning people not to ask certain questions. Amateur hour.
— Dan Wolken (@DanWolken) January 21, 2025
Considering that his post was relatively vague, many — especially Fighting Irish fans — took issue with it, believing that the longtime columnist was being overdramatic about 18-22-year-olds being upset after losing the biggest game of their lives. After spending the better part of Tuesday arguing with such skeptics, Wolken took to a different social media platform — Reddit — to provide additional details regarding what he had both witnessed and experienced in the Fighting Irish locker room.
In a thread on the College Football subreddit regarding his post, Wolken explained via his verified Reddit account that he had planned to write a story about Ohio State star wide receiver Jeremiah Smith’s game-clinching catch. After asking Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman about it in his postgame press conference, Wolken then headed to the Fighting Irish locker room to get cornerback Christian Gray’s perspective on the play.
Upon arriving, Wolken said he observed a small number of reporters in the locker room, which explains why he’s one of the few (but not the only) media members to have publicly called attention to the situation. He also noted that other reporters had already asked Gray about the play, in which he was assigned to cover Smith and that “a few players were shouting obscenities at the reporters who had been there and complaining about the fact that Gray was asked about Jeremiah Smith.”
“I noticed that a staff member had walled off access to the locker and said that he wasn’t going to answer questions about the play,” Wolken continued. “So I turned around to leave because there was no point wasting my time and was going to go over to the Ohio State locker room. As I was leaving, a few players said some pretty threatening and insulting things to me as well.”
The reporter insisted he “didn’t really care” but that the scene was “ugly and unbecoming and unprofessional.” He added that it was unlike anything he had seen in any locker room in his more than two decades covering sports and that any suggestion that the scene didn’t happen as he described it was “complete and utter bullshit.”
Wolken added that he called attention to the situation on social media because it was so unique compared to other losing locker rooms he had previously covered. In the end, he said he blames the Notre Dame sports information department and College Football Playoff staff for not properly preparing the players for the realities of postgame access.
While it’s understandable that Fighting Irish players — particular Gray — would be upset after the game, anyone using threatening language toward reporters in such a situation obviously crossed the line. And although one could argue about the value of locker room access — which isn’t typically provided during the regular season — if it is going to be made available, then — to Wolken’s point — it would behoove everybody involved to be as prepared for it as possible.