Arizona State has suspended freshman defensive tackle George Lea for the season, a school spokesman confirmed Thursday.
Lea, who was suspended indefinitely following an arrest in June for an on-campus BB-gun incident, will be allowed to redshirt this season.
"Our deal is, if you violate rules, there's going to be accountability," head coach Todd Graham said in an Arizona Republic report. "He'll have a plan of improvement, and he has a lot of things with that. We felt like the young man deserved a second chance, but that's a pretty harsh punishment."
Lea was charged with one misdemeanor count of threatening/intimidating to cause injury and another misdemeanor count of assault with intent to cause fear or physical injury.
Lea, from New Orleans, enrolled early and participated in spring drills. ESPN.com's RecruitingNation ranked Lea the No. 53 defensive tackle in the country.
According to multiple reports stemming from the June arrest, Lea entered a freshman teammate's apartment and pointed a BB gun that was wrapped in a towel at the teammate. According to the Republic, one witness told police he thought Lea "was probably playing around," but the teammate told police he felt threatened.
Arizona State has a zero-tolerance policy on campus for guns, including air-powered guns. The spokesman intimated that there is specific verbiage in the school's code of conduct about BB guns because they look like real guns, a fact that contributed to the severity of Lea's punishment.
