CHAPEL HILL - North Carolina interim football coach Everett Withers declined to say this morning whether Tar Heels defensive lineman Quinton Coples would be punished by the team for a sign-out policy mistake that eventually led to the All-ACC player being interviewed by the NCAA.

Watch video of Withers' comments about Coples.

“The sign-out sheet policy is an internal policy that we have, so anything that happens will be an internal issue in how we handle it,’’ Withers said today. “As you guys all know, Quinton was cleared by the NCAA, so that issue goes away. No, what we do is handle anything internally in the family.”

Coples said he filed a sign-out sheet in May when he left campus – a policy instituted during the spring semester to track football players' whereabouts whenever they leave campus for 24 hours or more. The team instituted the policy after UNC lost Marvin Austin, Robert Quinn and Greg Little for the entire 2010 season after it was determined they had accepted trips and improper, agent-related benefits.

The problem, Coples said Thursday, was that he did not inform the team that he would be attending Austin’s NFL draft party in Washington, D.C.

NCAA investigators returned to Chapel Hill to interview Coples after a Washington magazine posted pictures from the party on its website. Several of the photos depicted Coples alongside Quinn, Austin and former teammate Michael McAdoo, who was ruled permanently ineligible by the NCAA for academic misconduct.
 
“I signed out, but it was an adjustment that I had to make that I didn’t make, which was to inform them that I was going to the party outside the place I was actually going,’’ Coples said. “ … I told them where I was going, which I did go to, but when I made that adjustment to go to the party, I just didn’t let anyone know. And that’s when the whole situation came up.”

The NCAA eventually told UNC that Coples did not commit any violations, but given that 14 players were held out of at least one game last season because of the NCAA investigation, it made for a stressful situation.

"I didn't think anything was going to happen,’’ Coples said. “I was just going to celebrate with my former teammates that had just gotten drafted. I felt like some people took things into a different perspective and saw something different and tried to make the situation bigger than what it was. At the end of the day, I was cleared, and I thank God for that and we're moving on.

"That was definitely a learning experience for me."
 

UNC confirmed this afternoon that Greg Little is the former football player who received 93 parking tickets associated with five different vehicles.

Those vehicles had nine different license plates on them, apparently from the use of dealer tags.

Little has declined to comment since last week when — in the wake of a court ruling — the university released public records revealing that some Tar Heels football players had racked up 395 campus parking tickets totaling $13,125 in fines over a three-and-a-half year span.

In 2007, when he was a high school senior, doctors gave Robert Quinn a second chance at football after he was diagnosed with a benign brain tumor.

Thursday night, after sitting out his junior season because he broke NCAA rules, North Carolina’s star defensive end was given a third chance to play the game he loves – by the St. Louis Rams.

Quinn, the 14th overall pick, became the 19th Tar Heel  to become a first-round selection. As many as 11 more of his former teammates could be chosen in the three-day, seven round draft – including defensive tackle Marvin Austin and wide receiver Greg Little, who also were kicked off the football team for accepting improper agent benefits (Quinn and Little were banned from playing college football again).

Robert Quinn, UNC's All-ACC defensive end in 2009 and one of the top prospects in the NFL draft, released a statement for the first time since being ruled ineligible by the NCAA and dismissed from the football team.

Quinn said:

UNC and the NCAA will not reveal who provided benefits to UNC players Greg Little, Robert Quinn and Marvin Austin, even as coaches here and across the country criticize, in broad terms, the influence of agents on college players.

The NCAA blasted Little and Quinn today in ruling them forever ineligible to play college football as a result of taking a combined $10,000 in trips, jewelry and more – and not telling the truth about it.

Separately, UNC said Austin also took benefits, worth at least $10,000, and kicked him out of the program without even submitting his case to the NCAA.

Correction: Little was a walk-on for the basketball team during the 2007-08 season, not '08-09. He played in 10 games.

CHAPEL HILL — North Carolina wide receiver Greg Little’s NCAA violations – which resulted in the senior being dubbed permanently ineligible this morning – occurred after his stint as a walk-on for North Carolina’s basketball team during the 2007-08 Final Four season, athletic director Dick Baddour said today.

Little and defensive end Robert Quinn were declared permanently ineligible by the NCAA for violations of agent benefits, preferential treatment and ethical conduct issues. The school will not appeal. Meanwhile, senior defensive end Marvin Austin was kicked off the team for similar issues, and UNC will not ask the NCAA to reinstate him.

Austin took extra benefits in the $10,000 to $13,000 range, Baddour said. According to the facts submitted by the university, the total value of the benefits was approximately $4,952 for Little and $5,642 for Quinn.

When North Carolina athletic director Dick Baddour announced that the NCAA’s investigation into potential improper contact with agents had spawned a second, separate probe into potential academic misconduct, he cautioned -- twice -- not to jump to any conclusions when names started to trickle out.

But with Marvin Austin already suspended for violating team rules, NCAA punishment handed down to Alabama’s Marcell Dareus and this morning’s announcement that 12 players will not play in Saturday’s game against Louisiana State and three more aren’t traveling to Atlanta but may play, let’s jump to a couple conclusions.

North Carolina has declared six football players ineligible for Saturday’s season-opening against No. 21 Louisana State for breaking school and/or NCAA rules and is withholding at least six others while the investigation continues, the university announced this morning.

UNC is still waiting to establish the eligibility of three other players.

In all, 15 Tar Heels players did not travel to Atlanta with the team this morning for the Chick-fil-A Kickoff game.