14 Charleston Southern players suspended for game at FSU

PEMBROKE PARK, Fla. – Charleston Southern will be short more than a dozen players when it faces Florida State this weekend.

Buccaneers running back Ben Robinson, who is from Tallahassee, said in a Facebook post that he and about 30 other players have been suspended "for using book money to buy other things" in the campus bookstore.

Robinson said the players had leftover book money that they wouldn't be able to get back, so employees at the bookstore told them to buy other things like pencils, binders and electronics.

"Now the school and NCAA are saying that is against the rules," Robinson wrote, saying that he was given the option of sitting out against third-ranked Florida State or the conference opener the next weekend.

The school said a total of 32 players will serve one-game suspensions for using aid designated for purchasing books to buy other items. Sixteen players have already served suspensions over the first two games of the season, and two more will serve a suspension later.

Wide receiver Colton Korn took to Facebook to call the suspensions "a witch hunt." Korn, who is among the players suspended, said employees encouraged the players to "use it because it disappears if we don't."

Korn said he and his teammates didn't know they were committing an NCAA violation.

"Other schools do similar things, and some teams even in our own conference get cost of attendance," Korn wrote.

Charleston Southern and other Football Championship Subdivision teams are allotted 63 scholarships for an 85-man team.

Florida State athletic director Stan Wilcox told the Orlando Sentinel that he expects Saturday's game to go on as scheduled. It will be the first game in the newly renovated Doak Campbell Stadium.

The Buccaneers are already a 37.5-point underdog against the Seminoles, who rallied to a 45-34 victory against then-No. 11 Mississippi on Labor Day in Orlando.