Lincoln High School's football season may not be over after all. Video of an altercation outside the Northeast Supersite field from the team's game last weekend led to a three-game suspension, but the School District of Philadelphia is now reconsidering the ban.

The school district announced the suspension Thursday after the fight that took place following Lincoln's win over Northeast High School, but the team and its supporters were not letting it end there.

They said these kids shouldn't be punished for something that fans and parents of their opponent started.

"They didn't clear the bench. It wasn't attacking anybody," Lincoln High School assistant coach Tim DiGiorgio said. "They just came to make sure that somebody was OK, and they were trying to leave their game."

DiGiorgio defended his players Friday, a day after the school district hit his football team with a three-game suspension over a postgame fight.

DiGiorgio and Lincoln's parents say everything started when fans of the opposing Northeast High School blocked their exit.

"It just made our students look like they were just, 'Oh, these are the bad guys, look at these kids huddled up,'" Letia Musa, a mother of one of the team's players, said. "We were leaving to get on the bus to go home."

"As an away team, those are our steps," DiGiorgio said. "So we should have clear steps to be able to exit and enter the premises."

More than two dozen Lincoln parents, players and coaches met with district officials Friday, looking to have the suspension reduced.

Parents showed officials a video that appears to show fans confronting the team on the steps, then a fight breaks out. In the video, you can see one person swinging a Stanley mug that parents claim hit a Lincoln staff member.

"That staff member had to get eight stitches," Musa said.

"We're going to take a look at what they get us, and have an opportunity to potentially modify that which we've done," Tomás Hanna, associate superintendent for secondary schools, said.

District officials and parents also discussed added security for teams leaving games, even the possibility of removing spectators altogether.

"That's a possibility," Hanna said.

"Let's eliminate the fans if that's the major problem," DiGiorgio said. "Increase security, and let the boys play."

But getting Lincoln back on the field was the group's most important message, especially for players like Brandon Alexander, a senior running back/linebacker who has missed much of the season due to a transfer and who was slated to play this week.

"Means everything, means everything," Alexander said. "It's my last opportunity to make a name for myself to go off and play in college."

"We want these guys right here, everybody right here, to have an opportunity to do what they love to do, and not get treated for something that they didn't do," DiGiorgio said.

District officials also said Philadelphia police are investigating those involved in the fight last weekend.

Lincoln will not be able to play its scheduled game Friday, but the district says it hopes to have an answer for parents and the team, one way or another, as soon as possible.