The Minnesota State football team will end its boycott of spring practice Friday, announcing their intent to play for head coach Todd Hoffner.

Hoffner was previously charged with having child pornography on a university-issued cellphone, the Associated Press reported. A judge recently exonerated him after determining the images were of his children after a bath and were recorded innocently.

To show support for interim coach Aaron Keen, the team refused to practice Wednesday when Hoffner was reinstated to the team. The players said they felt left out of the decision-making that led to Hoffner's return to the school.

"As a team, we are ready to get back to playing football," the players said in a joint statement after a two-hour meeting Thursday. "We received the answers we were looking for, feel fit to practice and welcome Coach Hoffner as we head toward the end of spring drills."

Hoffner was arrested in 2012 with the Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State fresh on the minds of the country, let alone the college football community. The Minnesota State coach's supporters maintained all along Sandusky's arrest and conviction for child sex abuse was the leading cause for Hoffner's firing.

After taking a job at Minot State, Hoffner decided to return to Minnesota State when the school apologized and offered him his old job.

"It's clear there has been a shift in the culture and I look forward to adapting and integrating many of those positive changes into my leadership of the program and the pursuit of the ultimate goal of winning a national championship," he said in a statement.

The boycott comes at the same time the NCAA is seemingly being thrust into making changes that could come seriously close to altering its model of amateurism. Kain Colter, a graduating senior at Northwestern University and the team's former quarterback, has led the movement for a team union.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) granted the team the right to form a union, pending an appeal from the school. According to Inside Higher Ed, Colter said at a hearing on Capital Hill that nothing was stopping players from organizing anyway. Now both Minnesota State and Grambling State's football teams have protested despite no official union existing.

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