GREEN & WHITE FOOTBALL

Mark Dantonio: Additional Michigan State players in 'red-lock' status

Chris Solari
Detroit Free Press
Spartan Football Coach Mark Dantonio talks about the 2017 football team Saturday, April 1, 2017, following the Green & White football game at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing.

EAST LANSING – Issues within Michigan State’s football team appear to have continued since the Spartans’ spring game.

Coach Mark Dantonio, when asked Wednesday if anyone who participated in the April 1 scrimmage has been suspended or are no longer with the program, said other players beyond the 15 who did not dress for the game are in what he termed a “red-lock” situation.

“Well, we red-lock people from time to time. We use the term red-lock for various things,” Dantonio said on the Big Ten spring football teleconference. “So yes, there has been. That’s a constant. There is constant people in and out of different situations. I think that is normal.”

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Dantonio did not identify any players or specify how many could be under his “red-lock” status.

Three unnamed players remain in limbo while waiting to find out if Ingham County Prosecutor Carol Siemon determines whether to file charges over an alleged sexual assault that occurred in the early-morning hours of Jan. 16. They remain suspended from team activities. Dantonio said a press conference on March 28 that an unspecified number of other players beyond those three also were suspended for additional team rules violations at that time.

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“Obviously, there’s a concern off the field that we had — and I addressed that at an earlier press conference — so we need to work through those situations,” Dantonio said Wednesday. “But as much as anything, when you have a young football team, you need to find leadership. And that leadership needs to translate on the field and off the field, as well.

“And so that’s what we’re doing, we’re finding who our leaders are. We’re gonna come together as a football team and we’re all gonna go in the same direction. And if we’re not going in the same direction, those people will be left behind.”

Dantonio said he could envision further attrition from the Spartans’ roster before the team reconvenes in late July to begin preparing for the 2017 season, but he did not confirm how many or which players might leave the program.

“That’s a tough thing to evaluate because people make decisions after spring ball relative to what they’re gonna do. Some people tend to change, things of that nature,” Dantonio said. “I think that’s natural, but I can’t put a number on that. All I can tell you is that we’re gonna do the things we have to do to move forward as a program.”

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