Charleston Southern is scheduled to pay a visit to #3 Florida State this weekend, but they may be without a ton of their players. It appears that their entire offensive line and more than 40 other players will be suspended for the game because of a strange bookstore money violation.
CSU running back Ben Robinson posted on Facebook this evening that he and “30+” other players had been suspended for the FSU game this weekend for improper use of book money. Apparently, Robinson and some other players used leftover money allotted for books on other bookstore products. This drew the eye of the NCAA, which has levied suspensions.
Offensive lineman Frank Cirone said that he and his entire offensive line had been suspended, and gave a good, detailed account of what had happened. Not only will “40+” players face suspensions, but they’ll have to pay back the money they used.
Receiver Colton Korn went even more in depth.
As the NCAA rulebook lays out, schools can give out money for book purchases, but only the exact amount needed to buy the books. The players were not notified that they were to return the extra (CSU is an FCS school, so the rules are slightly different) so they used it on other bookstore supplies without knowing it was a violation:
The onus here is most certainly on the CSU administration for failing to properly notify their players of the bizarre rules they were subject to, then, as Korn says, going on a “witch hunt”. A CSU assistant is currently suspended for a recruiting violation, so this is not exactly the most organized school. What’s most curious here is the timing. Announcing a raft of suspensions right before the team’s most prominent game on their schedule sure makes the players look bad, and takes some of the heat off CSU’s administrators. Additionally, forcing players to pay back the overages is punitive and extremely disingenuous, given who fucked up in the first place.
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