This is they way I look at negative recruiting schools. Just me personally:
It's a business....that's absolutely 100% true. As a business, if a salesman that my company trained, and invested time into went to another company that's fine. But if that salesman talked crap about his former company trashing it just to score a sale or two, that's fine as well. That salesman though should also understand he closed the door for ever returning as a salesman because he can never look our client in the eye and sell the place he went back to with integrity. You've lost all credibility because now because the words coming out of your mouth are just words trying to convince me I'm not a number you need to put in your win column. You're also telling me you would say or do anything to get me to sign.
What Key did or didn't do only certain people know. It's just pure messageboard conjecture. If he DID say the things he's rumored to have said, and not even taking into account he talked negatively about his alma mater, and a program that helped get him started in his coaching career, how can he sit across the table from parents and recruits and sell loyalty and integrity when he trashed the school he went to and gave him his start in recruiting. How is he going to answer a parent of a 4 or 5 star when they say "Coach Key, you told Johnny QB last week when you worked for 'Bama that GT was extremely hard academically, and the whole time you were there it was a struggle, and you wouldn't go back there again if you could do it over. How can you tell my son now GT is the place to go?"
IMO, there are better ways to go about it. All's fair in recruiting, but there's also a line. I mean, if you trashed a place to get a couple of wins, how do you return and look your ex co-workers and managers in the face? For peaks sakes, you are at 'Bama trying to recruit against GT. I mean, you're working for the best team and the best HC in college football this decade...do you really need to trash another school...especially the school you went to and hope to return to one day?