Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BY ANDREW OWENS N otre Dame announced Aug. 15 that four players have been removed from practices and games while the university in- vestigates possible academic fraud in- volving members of its football team and non-student-athletes. The four players — junior cornerback KeiVarae Russell, senior wide receiver DaVaris Daniels, senior defensive end Ishaq Williams and fifth-year senior linebacker Kendall Moore — remained enrolled at the university at the time of the announcement and will stay on scholarship until the investigation is complete, university president Rev. John Jenkins said at the press conference held at the on-campus Morris Inn. Jenkins provided no timetable for the investiga- tion, adding only that it is an academic matter and will not be affected by ath- letic dates, such as the football team's Aug. 30 opener against Rice. "We'll go as quickly as we can, but our emphasis will be on thoroughness," he said. "It will take as long as it takes to have a thorough and fair investigation and to proceed through our honor code process." Jenkins said it was "premature" to speculate about whether additional players could be implicated or how far back the scope of the investigation in- volves. A source told Blue & Gold Illus- trated that as many as 22 past and pres- ent students could be involved. With the four players temporarily un- available to the football program, this marks the third consecutive semester that a prominent player has been re- moved from action due to academic concerns. Daniels was reinstated this summer after the university suspended him for the spring semester due to poor