Wide receiver DaVaris Daniels broke his silence Friday, talking with ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler about his exile as five Notre Dame football players still awaiting their university hearings. Daniels, Eilar Hardy, Kendall Moore, KeiVarae Russell and Ishaq Williams have all been withheld from football activities while the university process continues.
“If they had enough evidence, you’d think it’d be over by now,” Daniels told ESPN.com. “Nothing should take this long. That’s just my opinion.”
Daniels seemed to fill in the remaining blanks of the process, acknowledging that the investigation centers around a paper turned in and the assistance of a student trainer.
This section from Fowler’s reporting is particularly worth reading:Daniels declined to discuss details of the investigation questioning whether the players wrote their own papers. But he acknowledged Notre Dame is examining at least a handful of emails among the players and a student trainer, who’s also a mutual friend, pertaining to her potential influence over written papers.
Daniels maintained he writes his own papers.
“It makes you feel like a villain. We’d go out to eat together, and people want to talk about the situation,” Daniels said. “What do you say?”
Daniels said he believes the emails involving him lack context and don’t properly explain his side.
Daniels said his suspension during the spring semester for poor grades should highlight that stance -- in other words, wouldn’t cheating improve his grades and not hurt them? Daniels was off campus for the spring after failing to keep a 2.0 grade-point average. The school reinstated him in May.
The student trainer has been interviewed by the school, said Daniels, who spoke with a university attorney for about an hour Aug. 15 and was asked academic-related questions dating back to 2011. He first heard about the investigation on Twitter, where within a few hours he received hateful messages from fans.
Daniels was on Twitter earlier today, the only student who has communicated at all during this process.
Who we play after stanford lol
— DaVaris Daniels (@SincerelyTDF) September 26, 2014
That makes sense, considering he now expects his hearings to take place next Friday, eliminating any chance of him playing against Stanford.
Also potentially limiting Daniels’ ability to make an impact immediately is the news that Daniels hasn’t been working out with Paul Longo, only stepping foot in the Gug “four or five times” since mid-August.
Notre Dame continues to have no comment on the process other than what Brian Kelly has discussed with the media.