Dantonio on Dismissing Charged Players: ‘The Education Was There’

Athletic Director Mark Hollis and head football coach Mark Dantonio addressed the media on Tuesday afternoon after arrest warrants were signed against three football players for an alleged sexual assault.

Josh King, Donnie Corley, and Demetric Vance have all been dismissed from the football team, effective immediately.

Hollis was at times emotional as he read his statement to the media members in attendance. He reiterated firmly that today's charges are not "reflective of my values nor that of the University's culture."

"This is my home, it's where my wife and I attended school. Where one son and my daughter earned their degree and where my other son will enroll this fall. I expect my home to be safe, safe to all that live here, and safe to all that visit. Like any home, its safety requires shared responsibility and accountability. As Athletic Director, I'm responsible to make tomorrow better than today" Hollis said.

As Hollis left the stand and introduced Mark Dantonio (around 6:00 into the video above) Dantonio reiterated the seriousness of the situation and how his program had to respect the legal processes that needed to take place leading up to today's announcements.

Dantonio also made clear that the players charged are not a representation of the program and that all players, especially the freshmen group that all three were a part of, were given plenty of education to try and avoid a situation like this.

"There's been numerous amount of education thrown at our players, especially to our freshman group, from the time that they got here. One week before the episode we had our title IX administrator come in and again talk specifically about a case at another university in this country. So the education I thought was there and they compromised themselves by getting involved in such a situation." Dantonio said.

Dantonio mentioned repeatedly throughout the press conference that the decision to remove the three players from the program regardless of legal outcome was his and his alone.

The head football coach took questions for about 20 minutes during the press conference.

Near the end of the press conference, Dantonio was asked with how trying it has been as the head football coach of a program going through these issues if he ever thought about walking away from his position.

"No, I don't think you walk away from problems. As I said from earlier in my time here, you're hired to handle the problems, that's why you're hired here and that's why you're asked to do what you do. 3-9, yeah that's difficult, we'll push through. This thing that's occurred, it's very very difficult. As I said earlier, I didn't want to talk football for the last 6 months because of this situation so we refrained from doing that because of the seriousness of this." Dantonio said.

King, Corley and Vance do have arrest warrants out against them and once they are filled they will be arraigned on their respective charges and a judge will decide bond and dates will be set for initial court hearings so that the case may move forward.