A starting safety and 3 of the teams top 4 cornerbacks against one of the nation's best passing offenses.
I know the team didn't say they'd be suspended through the bowl game but typically college teams err on the side of caution and leave them off the roster.
How in the world is this line still up??? This kind of loss has to push this line farther up than it has moved....
Boy, I don't think losing 2 starters in the secondary makes 7.5 attractive for Gophers backers.
Then you have to deal with the scrutiny of a sex scandal which Baylor just wen through. As you saw with them, it puts a severe psychological strain on the team as well as added media scrutiny on the team for the next two weeks. None of those things are good. I don't see why you wouldn't pull the line when only WSU money can be coming in right now.
A student’s claim last September that she was sexually assaulted prompted the University of Minnesota to suspend 10 Gophers football players from the team, weeks after a criminal probe resulted in no charges.
Her accusations, documented through police reports and court testimony, ultimately led to a U committee’s investigation and Tuesday’s decision, more than three months after the Sept. 2 incident.
The suspended players are Ray Buford, Carlton Djam, Seth Green, KiAnte Hardin, Dior Johnson, Tamarion Johnson, Kobe McCrary, Antonio Shenault, Mark Williams and Antoine Winfield Jr. While some players were directly accused in the alleged sexual assault, the involvement of others is unclear.
In an e-mail to boosters sent Wednesday, U President Eric Kaler said the players will not participate in the Dec. 27 Holiday Bowl Game in San Diego, citing a decision made by Coach Tracy Claeys in consultation with Athletic Director Mark Coyle.
“The need to take actions like this is incredibly disappointing. Unfortunately, these types of situations are difficult for the University because we are limited in what we can say,” Kaler wrote. “While we strive to be transparent in all that we do, the fact is that, under the law, our students have privacy rights that we value and respect.”
Lee Hutton, an attorney representing several of the players, confirmed the suspensions stem from the incident in a Dinkytown apartment in the early morning hours after the team’s season-opening victory over Oregon State. He has pledged to appeal.
After the incident, the Gophers suspended four players — Buford, Hardin, Dior Johnson and Tamarion Johnson — for an unspecified violation of team rules. Those players missed three games while police investigated, and they were reinstated when Hennepin County declined to press charges. No arrests were made. The Star Tribune initially did not specify the nature of the investigation because the players were not charged.
The university statement says: “Due to privacy restrictions relating to student educational data, there is nothing further the University can share.”
A day after the incident, the student told police she was drunk when she was raped in Djam’s apartment by several men that night, including some of players who the university suspended, according to police records and court testimony. She told police that men were lining up into the room, and that she had to yell to stop sending people in “because she couldn’t handle it.”
When police interviewed the players, they denied they raped the student and said the sex was consensual. In a video Djam took of the incident and viewed by police, the student appeared “alert, somewhat playful and fully conscious; she does not appear to be objecting to anything at this time,” Minneapolis Police officer Matthew Wente wrote in a police report.
On Oct. 8, the Hennepin County attorney’s office declined to press charges, saying in a news release “there is insufficient, admissible evidence for prosecutors to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that either force was used or that the victim was physically helpless as defined by law in the sexual encounter.”
The alleged victim, who is part of the Gophers game day operations, later filed restraining orders against those four players, along with Djam, that kept the five players out of TCF Bank Stadium for the Oct. 29 Rutgers game.
The restraining orders were dismissed in a Nov. 2 settlement, which still required the players to stay 20 feet away from the alleged victim.
That day, after a morning of testimony at the Hennepin County Courthouse before Judge Mel Dickstein, the alleged victim gave a statement that said, “I’m glad this is over. This has never been about punishing anyone, I just wanted to feel safe. Because of this resolution that we came to, now I do.”
But the university’s Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action (EOAA) conducted its own investigation, which led to these latest suspensions.
According to a person familiar with the case and police documents obtained by the Star Tribune, the five newly suspended players — Green, McCrary, Shenault, Williams and Winfield — were in the apartment on Sept. 2.
Hutton was still gathering details Tuesday night but said some of his clients could be facing expulsion, with others facing a one-year team suspension or probation.
The university did not make athletic director Mark Coyle available for comment late Tuesday. Head coach Tracy Claeys will be in San Diego on Wednesday for a news conference previewing the team’s Dec. 27 Holiday Bowl game against Washington State. Last month, Coyle said Claeys had his “full support,” after an 8-4 regular season.
The EOAA makes punishment recommendations to the university, and individuals are allowed to appeal. Hutton said all of his clients will appeal, but it’s unclear if they’ll receive a hearing before the Holiday Bowl.
“I’m ticked, and I plan on exposing the office of EOAA for these unfounded conclusions,” Hutton said. “I was going to wait until after the new year to bring lawsuits on behalf of my clients against [the alleged victim]; we just decided to accelerate the process.”
Buford’s father, Ray Buford Sr., works in law enforcement in Detroit.
“It’s just been a total shock,” he said. “It’s almost like I’m in the movies or the ‘Twilight Zone.’ Ray’s a strong kid, but obviously you’re frustrated. You feel like you’ve put this behind you.
“The police have cleared you and found that you were telling the truth. The prosecutor’s office has cleared you and found you were telling the truth. And the judge has cleared you, and this group [the EOAA] comes in and says they were all wrong.”
Five of the 10 University of Minnesota football players suspended from the team in the fallout of a student’s sexual assault allegation now face expulsion from school, the players’ attorney, Lee Hutton, said Wednesday night.
Four other players face a one-year suspension and another could get probation stemming from the Sept. 2 incident. The school discipline comes weeks after a criminal investigation resulted in no arrests or charges.
A woman’s claim that she was assaulted in the early morning hours after the Gophers’ first game, documented through police reports and court testimony, ultimately led to an investigation by the school’s office for Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action.
Hutton said the EOAA recommended expulsion for Ray Buford, Carlton Djam, KiAnte Hardin, Dior Johnson and Tamarion Johnson; one-year suspensions from the university for Seth Green, Kobe McCrary, Mark Williams and Antoine Winfield Jr., and probation for Antonio Shenault.
Some of the players were directly accused in the alleged sexual assault; the involvement of others is unclear. Hutton, who is representing all 10 players, said he is working on their appeals.
University President Eric Kaler wrote in a letter to donors Wednesday that football coach Tracy Claeys, with athletic director Mark Coyle’s support, decided to suspend the players from the team ahead of its Dec. 27 bowl game in San Diego.
“The need to take actions like this is incredibly disappointing. Unfortunately, these types of situations are difficult for the University because we are limited in what we can say,” Kaler wrote. “While we strive to be transparent in all that we do, the fact is that, under the law, our students have privacy rights that we value and respect.”
Hutton confirmed that all the suspensions stem from the incident in a Dinkytown apartment after the team’s season-opening victory over Oregon State. After the complaint was first reported, the Gophers suspended four players — Buford, Hardin, Dior Johnson and Tamarion Johnson — for an unspecified violation of team rules. Those players missed three games while police investigated.
They were reinstated when the Hennepin County attorney declined to press charges. The Star Tribune initially did not specify the nature of the investigation because the players were not charged.
The university’s statement said: “Due to privacy restrictions relating to student educational data, there is nothing further the University can share.”
Reporting to police
According to police reports and the student’s testimony, the student, who is part of the gameday operations at TCF Bank Stadium, drank five to six shots of vodka on the night of Sept. 1 before heading out of her apartment with her roommates toward Dinkytown.
She then went with two football players to the Radius, an off-campus apartment building. Though she said her memory was spotty, she recalled Djam in a common area asking her to go up to his apartment. She would later testify that she had no intention of having sex.
She said she felt panicked when Djam walked her into his bedroom, but later testified that he never pushed her, prevented her from leaving or said anything threatening to her.
Asked during a court hearing why she didn’t leave, she said, “I felt scared, trapped, isolated with someone I felt had power over me.”
At some point, they began having sex. The police report said “she doesn’t have a recall about how the sex acts started.”
After Djam, others followed. She told police she saw a line of men waiting to take turns.
“I was removing myself from my mind and my body to help myself from the pain and experience going on,” she testified.
She estimated there were at least a dozen men. “I was shoving people off of me,” she testified. “They kept ignoring my pleas for help. Anything I said they laughed. They tried to cheer people on.”
About an hour and a half later, she said, she was allowed to leave. She called her sister, who told her to go to the hospital immediately, where she was given a rape exam, while her mother made a report to Minneapolis police. The next day, an officer sat down with the student, who described her version of what happened.
On Sept. 8, police investigators Eric Faulconer and Matthew Wente interviewed Djam. He acknowledged having sex with the woman, but was adamant that it was consensual. As proof, he played them three separate videos, totaling about 90 seconds, taken that morning.
Police later interviewed four other players, who each said the sex was consensual.
On Sept. 30, Wente sent the investigation to the Hennepin County Attorney’s office for possible prosecution. In it, he wrote about the videos, “at no time does she indicate that she is in distress or that the contact is unwelcome or nonconsensual.”
On Oct. 8, the attorney’s office announced there would be no charges.
Afterward, the alleged victim filed a restraining order against six of the players, asking that they be made to stay away from the stadium. After a judge granted the orders, the woman dropped a petition against one of the players.
Hutton, the players’ attorney, appealed, setting up a hearing where the woman testified for several hours. The hearing eventually ended in a settlement — the restraining order would be dropped, but the players still had to stay 20 feet away from the woman and have no contact with her. The two sides also agreed that neither would be able to file a lawsuit.
“I’m glad this is over,” the student read in a statement after the hearing. “This has never been about punishing anyone, I just wanted to feel safe. Because of this resolution that we came to, now I do.”
Claeys and Coyle briefly addressed the matter separately Wednesday. Both said they were prohibited from discussing details of the university investigation.
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