According to the Miami Herald's Susan Miller Degnan, a source has indicated that eight Canes athletes— all assumed to be football players— have been declared ineligible by the school itself. Before any panic sets in, this appears to be a standard operating procedure in order for said players to be able to play in Miami's opening game versus Maryland on Sept. 5. By preemptively declaring them ineligible, Miami can now start the official reinstatement process with the NCAA in the hopes that they will either be cleared to play, or that they will at least receive a set suspension so that the team can get a concrete idea of who can and cannot play. We do not yet know who the eight players are, though Degnan's source says that Jacory Harris is in the group. As for everyone else, two questions remain:
The first question, obviously, is who the other seven players are. The second question is how many players Miami cleared. In Yahoo's initial report, 12 current Canes football players were named, but in Donna Shalala's recent video statement, she said that the school was investigating 15 athletes. So, we might be looking at four cleared players. Or, we might be looking at seven. Or the number could be totally different. At the moment, not much is clear beyond the fact that the cleared players are believed to have taken less than $100 in illegal benefits from Nevin Shaprio, meaning that they can pay that back without penalty. Expect more to leak out on this story tomorrow morning when the media gets back to the UM campus, if not before then. We will, of course, keep you posted.
UPDATE: Degnan has tweeted that Sean Spence is also amongst the eight players ruled ineligible.
My prediction— and I want to reiterate that this is just slightly educated guessing on my part— is that these players will also be ruled ineligible: Travis Benjamin, Marcus Forston, Aldarius Johnson and JoJo Nicolas. Along with Spence, those four were implicated as being present at Lucky Strike events held by Shapiro, which cost him over $2,000.