While there were plenty of wonderful moments during the most recent college football bowl season, what happened at the end of the first Miami Beach Bowl between Memphis and BYU was not one of them. Players from both teams exchanged blows instead of handshakes after the game in the ugliest scene of the bowl season, if not the entire college football season. As a result, Memphis announced Tuesday that 12 players from its football team will be issued some sort of suspension.
Suspensions for returning players in 2015 will range from half-game to two-game suspensions on top of suspensions from other team activities such as practices and scrimmages, according to The Commercial Appeal. Which players will serve what suspension has not been confirmed, as a review of the incident may require some additional work before making those decisions.
“We hold our student-athletes to the highest standards of sportsmanship and personal conduct at the University of Memphis,” Memphis athletic director Tom Bowen said in a released statement. “The actions of a few members of our football program in Miami were completely unacceptable. I can assure our community, fans and stakeholders that we have and will continue to hold our young men and women accountable and will use this unfortunate incident as a teaching tool for all our student-athletes moving forward.”
American Athletic Conference commissioner Mike Aresco , who already expressed his thoughts on the incident, commended Memphis for its handling of the brawl and said Memphis and BYU worked together to organize a conference call between coaches and captains to apologize to each other for what unfolded.
BYU has not issued any disciplinary actions at this time.