The deadline for Clemson’s ostarine appeal is here. What’s next?
A couple of months ago, the NCAA granted Clemson an extension to file its appeal after three players tested positive for the banned substance ostarine prior to the start of the 2018 College Football Playoff.
The school’s appeal was originally due in February, but the NCAA allowed Clemson to wait and turn in its appeal in late April instead as the university continued to look into what caused defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence, tight end Braden Galloway and offensive lineman Zach Giella to fail drug tests last December.
Lawrence was selected in the first round of last week’s NFL draft by the New York Giants, but Galloway and Giella are still facing a year-long suspension for the failed tests. Clemson now must wait on the NCAA’s decision.
“The appeal is due, I believe, in the next few days. It’s in the end of April. We’ll have that appeal in on behalf of the two student-athletes,” Clemson Athletics Director Dan Radakovich said Friday. “After we put the appeal in, then it’s up to the NCAA to set the time period for the decision.”
Radakovich said Clemson’s legal team worked with representatives for Galloway and Giella to gather data and information to file the appeal.
“I think that really the bottom line of all of this is how the NCAA and their appellate area rules on the data that those folks are going to be able to provide them,” he said.
Radakovich indicated that he has not read the entire report that will be filed, but “I think there’s some interesting pieces there as it relates to it” that could help Clemson get the suspensions overturned.
Radakovich also said that it could be time for the NCAA to look into what is considered enough for a test to be deemed a failed drug test.
Tigers coach Dabo Swinney said when the three players originally failed drug tests last December that they had a “slither” of ostarine in their systems.
“I think there’s some discussions that should be had in that area,” Radakovich said. “They’ve changed thresholds on other street drugs before. Never really changed thresholds as it relates to what are known as PEDs. So is it time to do that? Have machines become so sophisticated that five years ago the testing devices did not have the ability to detect these trace amounts, but they’re so good now that they have the ability to detect them? Does that make any type of enhancement to someone’s activity? That’s way beyond where I am other than just that process piece of what I just told you.”