Two football players from Muir High School face possible punishment after their involvement in a scuffle during a scrimmage against Cathedral last week.

Muir football coach Ken Howard said coaches and school administrators are looking into the matter and added a decision might be made by Thursday on whether the players will be suspended for Friday’s season opener at home against San Gabriel.

The altercation happened early in the scrimmage when teams were split into position groups. Howard said he was with the linemen when the scuffle between wide receivers and defensive backs broke out.

“Right now I don’t want to name names,” Howard said. “But basically some players were (fired up) about playing football. We got a couple of names and we’re trying to figure out what happened.

“I’m still discussing with some of our coaches and administrators the situation. We don’t know if there will be a punishment handed out this week or next week, but there will be a punishment.”

There is film of the scrimmage but not of the incident, which happened much earlier than the 11-on-11 scrimmage, which Howard classified as a “glorified practice.”

“In the midst of the scuffle there were guys running to it,” Howard described. “When you turn around and see the guys running to it, it looks like a bigger incident. But in the whole picture you find out that there were teammates pulling other teammates off of guys, so it didn’t escalate into a brawl or anything like that.”

Howard said the matter will be handled in a serious manner.

“We’re going to treat it as if it happened during a real game,” Howard said. “We ask ourselves, `What’s the punishment?’ We’re figuring out what kind of punishment will be handed down, and we’re going to make it clear it’s something that will not be tolerated.”

Mission accomplished

The scrimmage went on as planned, and Howard said he was pleasantly surprised by the progress.

Senior quarterback Jeffrey Davis, in particular, demonstrated patience in the pocket and speed. Davis, a 6-foot-4 speedster with a strong arm, is replacing Jarron Williams.

“(Davis) did a little of both,” Howard said. “He stood well in the pocket, got off some good balls and when he scrambled he ran pretty good. He showed he can get his reads down and proved confident in the pocket.

“We didn’t know what to expect, but he showed us some really good stuff. It was a pleasant surprise, truly.”