Sounds like the school president stopped caring about the players, so the players finally decided to stand up for themselves. An example of the absurdity at the school - an excerpt from an ESPN article:
So the head coach sees a sefety issue, doesn't get funds to cover it, raises the funds, but the school president won't let them use the mats because of the way that the funds were organized. Then they fired Williams a week later. Yeah, something going on at that school, and it didn't start with the players.