Last week, Georgia running back Todd Gurley was suspended after his school discovered that he may have signed a large number of autographs for a memorabilia dealer in exchange for $2000. And now, it sounds like yet another college football star could be in trouble for doing the same exact thing.
According to ESPN, Florida State's athletic compliance department is currently investigating how a company called James Spence Authentication was able to authenticate more than 300 items autographed by Jameis Winston. JSA is the same company that reportedly authenticated about 500 items signed by Gurley after receiving them from a single memorabilia dealer. So the thought is that Winston may have been paid to sign the 340 items that JSA authenticated.
ESPN reached out to Florida State head coach Jimbo Fisher over the weekend and was told that Winston denied signing anything for money after he was approached by Fisher himself. And Fisher told ESPN that he believes Winston.
"Kids sign things all the time," he said, alluding to the fact that Winston has signed a lot of items for fans over the last two years. "So what do you want them to do, stop signing stuff? We could make them not have any fans from that standpoint and not sign for anybody."
But Florida State is going to continue to look into the situation to see if Winston did, in fact, sign anything for money. Stay tuned for additional details.
UPDATE:
ESPN is now reporting that JSA has more than 900 Winston autographs that they have authenticated:
[via ESPN]
