NCAA rules QB Dasher must sit out 4 games, repay loan with Middle Tennessee appealing ruling

NCAA: Dasher must sit 4 games, repay $1,500 loan

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — The NCAA announced Thursday that Middle Tennessee State quarterback Dwight Dasher must sit out four games and repay a $1,500 loan to become eligible again.

The NCAA student-athlete reinstatement staff ruled that Dasher violated preferential treatment rules by receiving a loan from someone in the community. Repaying the loan also was part of the NCAA’s requirements for Dasher to regain his eligibility, and Middle Tennessee has told the NCAA Dasher has repaid the loan.

Athletics director Chris Massaro said Middle Tennessee is appealing the NCAA’s decision, hoping to get the suspension reduced to three games.

Dasher has already sat out the first two games of the season.

“The appeal process is already under way, and we feel there is enough mitigation to warrant a three-game suspension,” Massaro said.

School officials suspended the senior Aug. 27. He missed an opening loss to Minnesota and last week’s win over Austin Peay. Sitting out four games would put him on target to return to the Blue Raiders (1-1) for the Oct. 5 game against Troy — a key Sun Belt Conference matchup.

Dasher set a bowl record last December rushing for 201 yards as a quarterback, topping the 200 yards Vince Young ran for in the 2006 BCS National Championship, in the New Orleans Bowl victory that capped a 10-3 season. He is the Sun Belt Conference’s preseason offensive player of the year and already the school’s career leader in yards rushing by a quarterback.

He accepted a $1,500 loan from Oliver Donnell, an 80-year-old patient at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Murfreesboro. The loan became public when someone contacted campus police.