There are various sources reporting that the five players suspecting of academic cheating are finished for the year. Kelly's last official word was that each of the five will be treated differently according to circumstances.
someone has been saying this for a few days now. Something that bothers me, almost as much as the length of the investigation, is that there is a 'source' blurting out academic matters. If we are to take such a hard line, zero tolerance stance toward paper writing (which is fine) then I believe we should start taking such a harsh stance toward employees leaking information on clearly private matters.
If guilty I don't feel bad for the guys, cheating is cheating. I know most have complained about the length of the investigation. But I promise you that if they had wrapped it up in a week and booted the kids everybody would be talking about a railroad job. But while I wish we had those guys as they are good players, the team is just fine without them and we'll be fine going forward this season.
Now being reported that Russell is out for the year and plans to return in 2015. We were really fortunate that Cody Riggs decided to transfer in, he's filled in very nicely at CB. Russell in essence could replace Riggs next year as Riggs will be out of eligibility.
according to Notre Dame facebook page Kelly said no comments on anything .. because the players have an appeal process that still has to be done. Said the players are still in school and have access to training facility just not practicing with team. that was about noon our time.
Reading what Russell said, doesn't it sound like he knew the results for awhile and appealed and apparently the appeal has been denied? In this day and age, if all of that is true, this has been keep confidential for a long time. It was bound to start leaking at some point.
Each day this process continued the less chance there was that any of these guys would see the field. Something obviously was going on. The only question seems to be how severe the punishment.
Re: the ND 5, I trust the university. I trust the integrity of the process, whatever happens, and whenever it happens. I just want to get that out there, since ND is being mentioned elsewhere in the same topic as FSU. There's no similarity, of course. One (FSU) appears to be an institutional issue. The other (ND) is not. We here know that. Others outside of our family may not see it that way and may lump ND in with schools like FSU just 'cause.
Russell appears to have owned his problem and accepted his punishment, hasn't played the blame ND card. He talked to the team before the UNC game and from all reports he was very humble and promised to be back. Daniels dad has now tweeted that he is done at ND, and would be looking at NFL options. Good luck with that, DaVaris has had some good games but he was an inconsistent player and one that was just learning what it takes to be a consistently productive receiver in the college game. Since he didn't play this year nobody knows if he was going to make that next step to being a great receiver every game. Unless he has some incredible workouts for NFL teams and blows people away at the combine, assuming he is even invited. He will be a free agent or at best a very late round draft pick. I think Daniels and his dad are going to try and lay this off on ND, I hope I'm wrong of course. But nobody forced him to cheat, that's on him and like Russell he should own it.
Ishaq Williams is apparen tly out for the year too. he says he wants to come back in 2015. That leaves Hardy and Moore left to go.
I think Moore who has graduated and this would have been his 5th year is done. Hardy could come back. I hope both Ishaq and Hardy do come back, for a number of reasons. They would be valuable to the team and they would then be able to finish what they started and graduate..probably the most important thing in the long run. Somebody did say that while Kelly did say that Ishaq wanted to come back that he also didn't comment on whether he would be invited back. But I can't imagine Kelly not letting him back.
I just read a Comcast Sportsnet Chicago article about the results of the suspensions and the hearings. Referring to Davaris Daniels, it stated what we all have read, but it added to the comment that he's done with ND...."but left the door open to a possible return in 2015." That's the first I've seen of that, and I sure don't read into his and his dad's comments that he's leaving the door open. Has anyone else read something like this? Just curious.
I've seen that from his dad as well, something about keeping options open. Daniels himself was more direct that he was done with ND, loved the school, loved his teammates, wished them well, etc. The one guy that we haven't heard from is Hardy, Williams and Russel are on the record as coming back, Kendall Moore is out of eligibility and done. Hardy has a 5th year, but has been silent on his plans. I have to wonder is Kelly is considering his options with regards to recruiting another player or allowing Hardy to come back.
Good article on what it's really like to be a ND football player...from the academic side. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2194661-what-its-really-like-to-be-a-notre-dame-student-athlete#articles/2194661-what-its-really-like-to-be-a-notre
Apparently Hardy is trying to get the school to allow him to finish the semester, and Kelly said he would be back practicing with the team. Since he has to serve 2 semesters of punishment, that means he'd be gone for Spring 2015 and Fall 2015 and his career would be over, but he would graduate this Dec. So you have to assume that he wants to graduate so he can transfer and play his final year some where else in Div1. Good luck to him