Sports

Louisville suspends coach caught in the middle of the WakeyLeaks scandal

louisville footballTimothy D. Easley/AP

Days after the University of Louisville admitted to receiving information from college football radio announcer Tommy Elrod in the WakeyLeaks scandal, the university put out a statement saying they’ve suspended Lonnie Galloway, the offensive coordinator who received that information.

In Lousville’s original statement, athletic director Tom Jurich said that while the school did receive information about Wake Forest’s game plan from Elrod, they did not benefit from that information.

On Friday, Jurich said that Louisville coach Bobby Petrino maintains that the team did not benefit or use the information. However, the school decided to suspend Galloway for the team’s upcoming Cirtus Bowl game for accepting the information and sharing it.

Read Louisville’s statement below:

“Two days ago, I announced that our co-offensive coordinator, Lonnie Galloway, received information from Tommy Elrod of Wake Forest concerning information that belonged to Wake Forest.

“Since then, we have carefully and thoroughly reviewed what took place following the receipt of information from Wake Forest on their investigation. I have also been in regular contact with the Commissioner of the ACC. Coach Petrino has been firm that on the two occasions in which he previously commented on the matter, he did not know about the information provided at that time.

“It is clear to me that the information should not have been shared by anyone at Wake Forest and it should not have been received by anyone at the University of Louisville. Although no one from Louisville sought the information, once it was provided, we did not do what should have been done. The information should not have been accepted. It should have been rejected and officials at Wake Forest should have been alerted to the inappropriate action taken by Mr. Elrod.

“As a result, I am suspending Coach Galloway from participation in the Citrus Bowl, effective immediately. We will also accept any actions in which Commissioner John Swofford deems appropriate.

“This is an unusual situation. When someone receives information they should not be given, it is important that they do the right thing. Even in a competitive atmosphere, the right and ethical thing would have been for us to not accept the information. I regret very much that this took place.”

On Friday, Wake Forest head coach Dave Clawson explained to ESPN’s “Mike and Mike” how Louisville having the team’s game plan affected them. He said that a week’s work of practice was lost on short notice because they had to scrap plays they worked on.

“At that point, we knew we had been compromised. As a result, a lot of those things that we had prepared, we couldn’t run because we knew they had it. After the game, our players were upset. They wanted to know ‘Why did we work on all these things? Why did we practice all these things and not use them?’ They were upset. They felt that we did not give them the best opportunity to win the game.”

Army and Virginia Tech both confirmed over the week that they were contacted by Wake Forest to inform them that Elrod passed on information to their teams. Both schools are still looking into the matter.

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