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UNM football players Rod Davis and Fatu Ulale were suspended by the NCAA on Wednesday for “impermissible benefit violations.”
The UNM football program reported that the violations will cause Davis to be ineligible for the first two games of the season and Ulale the first four.
The violations occurred last year under former head coach Mike Locksley, and the players are in the process of paying back the benefits.
Current head coach Bob Davie said the incident involved players shipping things home with a University FedEx account.
“Guys were given a FedEx number, a University FedEx number, by a member of the previous staff and they FedEx-ed some things home,” Davie said. “They were told they could do that, which you can’t do that.”
The suspensions come on the heels of two other football player suspensions earlier this week. On Tuesday, walk-on quarterback David Vega was suspended after being arrested early Sunday morning for “over the weekend a minor in possession, something about he didn’t show his ID or something,” Davie said.
On Monday, sophomore cornerback Devonta Tabannah was suspended after his arrest Sunday. Tabannah was charged with driving while intoxicated, failure to obey a traffic control device and failure to provide registration, a driver’s license or proof of insurance.
Davie said he knew about the suspensions of Ulale and Davis beforehand and wanted to report them sooner.
“I would have announced it earlier. I wanted to announce the day that we knew they were going to miss games, but I thought it was fair to them to go through the appeal process,” Davie said. “I was never going to mislead someone, but talking to our people here, they said it was better for them to finish the appeal process before announcing it.”
Davie said the all of the suspensions are part of the rebuilding of Lobo football.
“I feel pretty good, to be honest,” Davie said. “It’s kind of a cleansing, refreshing thing that guys make mistakes and get exposed.”
Davie said he might sit out Ulale for the whole year. Ulale’s suspension already puts him out of commission for a third of the season and it would be difficult for him to rejoin the scheme after such a long absence, Davie said.
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“We may redshirt (Ulale) anyhow, because that was kind of the plan,” Davie said.
