College Football | Florida State suspends 5 following brawl

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida State players were excited about wearing all-black uniforms and asked fans to dress likewise for tonight's homecoming showdown with Boston College.

As it turns out, the attire might be fitting for the mood of many fans after the school's latest embarrassment involving athletes.

Seminoles coach Bobby Bowden suspended five wide receivers Friday for their roles in a midweek campus brawl that resulted in one bystander being treated at a hospital.

Taiwan Easterling, Richard Goodman and Cameron Wade will be held out, along with Bert Reed, who is serving a third suspension in four weeks, and Corey Surrency, suspended a second time in three weeks.

The melee couldn't have come at a tougher time for a team scrambling to get back into the thick of the Atlantic Coast Conference race and needing to win out to have a chance of playing in the ACC's championship game next month.

Perhaps more importantly, the school is awaiting word from the NCAA on sanctions from a 2007 academic-cheating scandal that cast a pall over the end of the 2007 season and the start of this year's schedule — with key players sitting out games.

"If I'm sitting up there in Indianapolis [NCAA headquarters] looking at this, I'd say, 'Those guys down there aren't taking this thing very serious,' " said Jim Smith, a former Florida attorney general who chairs the school's board of trustees.

Florida State President T.K. Wetherell said the brawl ruins efforts of those working to clean up the school's image.

Top 25 game

No. 22 Cincinnati 28,

at Louisville 20

Tony Pike threw for 250 yards and two touchdowns and the Bearcats (8-2 overall, 4-1 Big East) remained in good position for the conference title by defeating the Cardinals (5-5, 1-4).

Cincinnati has a half-game lead over West Virginia and Pittsburgh in the Big East race. The Bearcats beat West Virginia last week and host the Panthers on Nov. 22.

Notes

• Two West Virginia players facing battery charges — running back Maxwell Anderson, 21, and special-teams player Jeremy Kash, 21 — have been indefinitely suspended from the team.

Morgantown Police Sgt. Harold Sperringer has said both players were charged with misdemeanor battery after an Oct. 25 fight at a bar.

• Arkansas-Pine Bluff coach Monte Coleman suspended 10 players ahead of today's final home game against Mississippi Valley State. Nine were suspended for breaking a 10 p.m. curfew while the team was in Little Rock, Ark., last week preparing to face Grambling State.