When Missouri’s Cardinal Ritter College Prep football team took the field in August at an away game in the Chicago area, it debuted a number of new players: among them freshman Marvin Burks as running back.

But there was something oddly familiar about Burks, who was on the roster for one week then disappeared. The jersey was different, but photos published by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reveal that the unique tattoos on Burks’ arms greatly resembled that of junior running back Bill Jackson.

Here’s the fumble: Jackson was ineligible to play after being ejected during the fourth quarter of the school’s 2018 championship game.

National Federation of State High School Associations rules state that a player ejected from a game must sit out the next game, even if it’s in the following season. The August 31 game where “Marvin Burks” played was the game Jackson was supposed to sit out.

Months later, coaching staff at the school copped to the switcharoo after the newspaper’s investigation was published, self-reporting the illegal use of Jackson in that game to the Missouri State High School Activities Association.

Cardinal Ritter and the Archdiocese of St. Louis announced Friday that the coaching staff has been dismissed and the football program suspended. Cardinal Ritter, who had been 7-0 as of last week, forfeited all the games played this season, and the school’s athletic director “has made the decision to retire.”

Now-fired coach Brandon Gregory took responsibility for the incident, saying he thought Jackson already satisfied the suspension. But he denied that the cover-up was done on purpose.

“That’s a thing our kids do on the regular basis, you know, they try to change jersey numbers and sometimes don’t let us know,” Gregory claimed Friday.

But after the August game, Gregory told the Post-Dispatch, “Marvin Burks, we added him last minute.”

At the time of its suspension, Cardinal Ritter was the No. 1 small school in the Post-Dispatch’s rankings and sat at the top of the Missouri Media Class 2 poll. It was also the top-ranked small school in the nation on MaxPreps.

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