An undetermined number of Charleston Southern football players will be suspended for Saturday's game at No. 3 Florida State for spending scholarship money allocated for books on other items, a source told ESPN.
On Thursday, Charleston Southern senior running back Ben Robinson posted on Facebook: "So basically about 30+ players on my team including me have been suspended for using book money to buy other things in the book store like pencils, binders, and electronics, out of our school bookstore. We would have left over book money and the workers in the bookstore advised us to spend the money because we would not get it back, so we did."
Charleston Southern, an FCS school, lost at North Dakota State 24-17 on Aug. 27 and defeated Division II Kentucky State 57-7 on Sept. 3.
Charleston Southern athletic director Hank Small announced last week that head coach Jamey Chadwell and an unnamed assistant would serve a one-game suspension and that several players would be held out against Kentucky State for potential NCAA violations.
Chadwell's suspension was not related to the misuse of scholarship money, but because of the use of social media for recruiting.
"What we are trying to prevent is winning games in a particular sport that may become forfeitures in the future because players who broke the rules participated in the games," Small said in a statement last week. "Currently we are most concerned with our fall sports (volleyball, football, soccer and cross country) because those sports are competing right now. We will examine each sport, department-wide, as we move forward.
"The rules regarding scholarship and book money are explicit on what the monies can be spent on. This is covered in our own student-athlete handbook. It only came to light recently that we may have some issues to clear up. We have to be sure there are no difficulties down the line in regards to having ineligible athletes participate."
Chadwell's suspension will be served against Albany State on Oct. 8.