Florida facing two situations, one serious

Florida Coach Will Muschamp is dealing with two off-the-field issues, a sexual assault allegation he called a “very serious charge” and a fight between teammates he labeled a “tremendous misunderstanding.”

“You handle things in life and you move forward,” Muschamp said Wednesday. “That’s what we’re going to do.”

Muschamp made his first public comments since it was announced Monday that freshman quarterback Treon Harris had been suspended indefinitely while authorities investigate sexual assault allegations made against him.

“It’s a very serious charge and there’s been no change in his status,” Muschamp said. “I feel very comfortable in how we’ve approached this situation.”

The program banned Harris from all team activities during the investigation. The school said a female student accused Harris of sexually assaulting her around 3 a.m. Sunday — hours after he helped Florida rally to beat Tennessee, 10-9, in Knoxville.

Muschamp declined to answer several questions about the Harris case, including when he found out about the incident, what he told the team and whether he thought Harris had any character flaws.

Muschamp laughed off his other off-the-field situation, even taking a shot at the media by saying, “I tell you what, we’ve made a big one out of this.”

Quarterback Skyler Mornhinweg, son of New York Jets offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg, and teammate Gerald Willis got into a fight over a pair of missing cleats Monday night.

Muschamp said Willis couldn’t find his cleats on an air-drying system, grabbed a pair labeled No. 17 that he thought belonged to close friend and fellow defensive lineman Jordan Sherit. It turned out those belong to Mornhinweg, who changed his number from 17 to 8 this season.

Mornhinweg approached Willis about, and things escalated and ended with punches exchanged.

“Nobody stole anything,” Muschamp said. “If anybody stole anything, they wouldn’t be on this football team anymore, I can assure you of that. We had a disagreement, and I wish it would have been handled a little bit differently.

“Me and my brother Mike used to fight all the time. It happened in our family. Maybe our family is really different from everybody else’s. Me and my brother Pat, I never won. Took swings. Never won. That’s the way it goes. Families, it’s what happens.”

BB gun suspensions

East Carolina has indefinitely suspended three football players from the team after they were cited for shooting BB guns within city limits.

Coach Ruffin McNeill announced the suspensions of linebacker Yiannis Bowden, receiver Curtis Burston and linebacker Markel Winters.

Greenville (N.C.) Police Department spokeswoman Kristen Hunter said witnesses on Tuesday saw three men in a car firing weapons toward the ground. Hunter says the incident prompted a 10-minute lockdown at a nearby elementary school.

Hunter says the three players were stopped by police, cited for discharging a weapon within city limits and released. The officers later determined the weapons were BB guns.

In a statement, McNeill called their actions “irresponsible and dangerous.” None of the three freshmen have played this season for the 19th-ranked Pirates