Rumors began to swirl late on Friday morning of a potential academic fraud scandal at the University of Notre Dame, one that involved at least four football players. Yahoo! Sports’ Pat Forde first tweeted that it had sources indicating that the school was investigating four players and a few non-athletes in regard to potential academic fraud.
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Now it’s being reported by Fox Sports’ Bruce Feldman that Notre Dame has dismissed all four players involved, and they are all starters as well.
The identity of the four players is not 100 percent known at this time, but all four are big pieces to the puzzle for the Irish in 2014 according to reports.
Initial allegations indicate that the investigation centers around alleged illegal academic assistance during the 2012 season, a season in which the Irish went undefeated before losing to Alabama in the BCS National Championship game.
What is not clear as of this writing is if the students will ever be allowed to return to the university or the complete details of just how deep the academic fraud is alleged to have been.
It’s also worth noting that head coach Brian Kelly has not been thought to have direct or indirect knowledge of these events taking place. However, as the head of the football program it will be interesting to see how Notre Dame handles Kelly’s employment in the future.
We all know that academic life and being a student-athlete are taken very seriously by the university. Just ask Everett Golson about that.