Nebraska May Use All Players in Opener

The National Collegiate Athletic Assn. will allow Nebraska to use all 60 of its suspended players when the Cornhuskers open their football season Saturday night against Florida State, Chancellor Martin Massengale said Thursday.

Massengale said the NCAA has granted the university’s request for a stay of the suspensions and added that the NCAA Council Subcommittee On Eligibility Appeals will consider the university’s appeal Tuesday.

“We look forward now to playing the game Saturday under normal conditions with our players and we think we’ll have an exciting football game,” Massengale said at a news conference.

Earlier in the day, Nebraska Coach Tom Osborne said his Cornhuskers, ranked eighth in the preseason poll, might forfeit their opener against No. 11-ranked Florida State because of the suspensions.

The game, to be televised by ABC, will be the first night game at Memorial Stadium.

“We’re pleased with the stay in that it gives us all an opportunity to draw a breath,” Osborne said.

Dave Maggard, chairman of the NCAA Council’s Subcommittee on Eligibility Appeals, said denying a stay of the suspensions would have been unfair to the players if the appeal is upheld next week.

“We believe that the uniqueness of this case merits delaying the implementation,” Maggard said in a statement released by the NCAA.

A decision Wednesday by the NCAA Eligibility Committee resulted in the suspension of 53 Cornhusker players for one game and seven other players for two games.

NCAA spokesman Dave Cawood said the committee gave Nebraska an option of suspending at least 10 players per game over a number of games, instead of holding all the players out of one contest.

The penalties involve about 30 of Nebraska’s top 40 players, Osborne said. He said most of the suspended players had provided complimentary passes for people not authorized to use them.

Earlier Thursday, Osborne called the suspensions “one of the harshest penalties ever dealt out by the NCAA.” Investigators uncovered no evidence of recruiting violations or money improperly changing hands, the coach said.

He announced the penalties after practice Wednesday. Osborne said he was dumbfounded by the penalties because Nebraska coaches and players had been “totally open and honest” with the NCAA.

Players acknowledged the violations that investigators otherwise would not have known about, the coach said.

“We could have destroyed our pass gate lists. We left them as they were,” Osborne said. “By being honest and trying to cooperate, here’s what we’ve got. And we may destroy a season.”

Fiancees and friends were identified on pass lists as being family members and students, said Tom Simons, the school’s associate sports information director. Under NCAA rules, family members and students are the only people allowed to use players’ passes.

NCAA spokesman Jim Marchiony said Nebraska had declared 77 of its players ineligible last Friday for violating the complimentary-ticket rule.

After hearing an appeal by the university, Marchiony said, the eligibility committee restored eligibility to 17 of the players and upheld the suspension of the others.

Under NCAA procedure in such cases, players are declared ineligible by their schools and not by the NCAA. Nebraska did this, then went to the NCAA for relief.