Jeff Seidel

Detroit Free Press Columnist

EAST LANSING – This has trouble written all over it.

On Saturday afternoon, Michigan State will play its spring game at Spartan Stadium, and fans will be sitting in the stands, looking at their rosters, trying to figure out who is not out there.

Trying to confirm suspicions.

Who is missing? Who is dressed but not playing?

Three players and a staff member will miss Saturday’s game because they have been suspended for circumstances involving an alleged sexual assault.

Who are the players involved in the sexual assault? MSU coach Mark Dantonio has declined to name them, which is understandable. The investigation is still ongoing, and no charges have been filed.

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Now, here is where it gets complicated.

Here’s where it gets dangerous to make any assumptions based on who misses this game.

Other players — we don’t know how many — have been suspended and will miss Saturday’s game for other reasons.

Who are they? What did they do? We don’t know for sure.

In the age of Twitter, people are going to speculate. Anybody who misses this game will be named immediately on social media.

Just mentioning who is not on the field will cast doubt on anyone not playing.

Related:

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Under normal circumstances, I understand why a coach would not want to talk about a suspended player.

But in this situation?

Everybody who misses the game Saturday will be indirectly tied to the sexual assault case.

As a parent, in this situation, I would want Dantonio to make it clear my son was not involved in the sexual assault case.

I’m not in any way suggesting this is an easy situation. It’s no-win on every side.

On Tuesday, Dantonio said it is up to the media not to speculate.

“I would be careful to paint a brush over our entire program,” he said.

But that’s approaching this situation too simplistically, washing his hands of the matter, saying it is up to others not to speculate.

Related:

MSU' s Mark Dantonio says talk of spring football game 'trivial'

By taking this approach, Dantonio has set the stage to make a bad situation even worse.

“I hope everybody understands how serious we are taking this, relative to our football program and what we’re trying to do,” he said.

Dantonio made that statement in a news conference Tuesday, his first public remarks since National Signing Day on Feb. 1. He talked to the media for almost a half hour, although he didn’t offer many specifics.

Dantonio refused to talk about football because he said it seems “trivial” in comparison.

But if talking about football seems “trivial,” what about playing it?

Normally, I would always argue for more media access. To be able to see practices. To be able to see scrimmages. But I just don’t understand playing this spring game in public, under these circumstances.

With such a dark cloud hanging over this program.

With so much uncertainty hanging over who plays and who doesn’t.

Related:

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You could have a kid miss the game because he wakes up sick Saturday morning and someone in the stands will think that he is suspended. Someone will link him to the sexual assault case.

So let me finish this column by focusing on something else. Let me focus on something far more important. The victims of sexual abuse.

According to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control:

• Nearly one out of five women in the U.S. will be raped in their lifetime.

• About 37% of female rape victims were first raped between ages 18 and 24.

• Among female rape victims, more than half of the perpetrators were reported to be intimate partners.

Related:

Confusion reigns in campus sex assault probes for victims, accused

By bringing up those stats, I’m not in any way suggesting those three MSU football players are guilty or innocent. That determination will play out in time. But if we are going to talk about this issue, let’s really talk about it. This issue is bigger than an MSU football problem.

This is a horrendous societal problem. As the father of a 19-year-old female college student, those stats make me sick and frightened.

Clearly, what we are doing to try to stop it, across the whole country, just isn’t working.

Personally, I wish they would skip the game and hold an anti-sexual abuse symposium Saturday at Spartan Stadium for a couple of hours. For the players, the students, the fans and even the media.

It would be far more important and productive than a meaningless football game, where who plays and who doesn’t will be so intensely scrutinized.

Contact Jeff Seidel: jseidel@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @seideljeff. To read his recent columns, go to freep.com/sports/jeff-seidel/.