Watch: Kyle Flood Apologizes To Rutgers Community

Rutgers football coach Kyle Flood apologized to the Rutgers community at a news conference Monday.

Flood will be back on the field to coach the team this Saturday, following a three-game suspension. He was suspended after a school investigation found he had “inappropriate communications” with an instructor about a player’s academic standing, the university has said.

“I’ve had the opportunity to apologize for this situation to the team, to my family, but I’d like to take the opportunity now to apologize to the entire Rutgers community, to the students, to the alumni, and especially to the faculty, a faculty that I have a tremendous, tremendous respect for,” Flood said, according to a transcript of the news conference, posted on the athletic department’s website. “Since becoming the head coach in 2012, it’s never been my goal to just be the head football coach at Rutgers. My goal has always been to be a bigger part of the community here at Rutgers, a bigger part of the community in New Jersey, and I’ve worked very hard to make that happen. If this situation in any way has hindered or slowed that progress toward that goal, I’d just like to say that I’m fully committed as I go forward to making sure that that happens once again.”

Flood was also fined $50,000 after he used his personal email account to contact the professor, then had an in-person meeting with the instructor.

School officials have never named the student, but NJ.com has reported that it was Nadir Barnwell, 20. Barnwell has since been dismissed from the team after he was arrested on assault and riot charges.

At the news conference he said he used his private email account to protect the student-athlete “whose academic record had already been, to some degree, on public display when it shouldn’t have been.”

When he met the instructor and said he choose not to wear Rutgers gear to the meeting, it was a “very small-talkish type comment,’’ he told reporters at Monday’s news conference. “But it’s one of the things I’ve learned in this process, is that things like that when you’re the head football coach, they can be taken out of context.”

Rutgers plays an away game against Indiana Saturday. Kick-off is at 3:30 p.m.