MINNEAPOLIS — The University of Minnesota football team’s boycott started with a bold demand for apologies and a threat to skip a bowl game if 10 teammates suspended after a sexual assault investigation weren’t reinstated.

It ended less than 36 hours later, the university leadership never blinking, and the players backing down amid pressure from many who read details of the allegations.

The players announced Saturday morning that they plan to play in the Holiday Bowl, rescinding their boycott after two exhausting days of meetings with attorneys, school President Eric Kaler and Athletic Director Mark Coyle.

“As a team we understand that what has occurred these last few days and playing football for the University of Minnesota is larger than just us,” receiver Drew Wolitarsky said.

The school declined the players’ request to reinstate the suspended players. The team will now go ahead with its Dec. 27 game against Washington State in San Diego after getting assurances that those accused will get a fair hearing next month.

Wolitarsky, reading from a statement, said after many hours of team discussion and speaking with Kaler, “it became clear that our original request of having the 10 suspensions overturned was not going to happen.”

Kaler and Coyle issued statements Friday and reiterated to the players in a meeting late Friday night that they had no intention of changing their decision after an internal investigation determined the suspended players violated school conduct codes in an encounter involving a woman and several players at an off-campus dorm Sept. 2.

“I’m very pleased that the football team has realized the opportunity to represent the university and come out strong in support of the victims of sexual violence,” Kaler said Saturday. “They’ve come out strongly in support of the victims of sexual violence. I have promised a very fair hearing to the students involved and charged and I (intend) to have that be true. We will judge them very fairly.”

The Holiday Bowl is one of the most lucrative and well-known of the second-tier bowl games. The payout to each school was $2.8 million last year.

Bowl revenue is pooled and shared by conferences. For the Big Ten, which distributed more than $30 million to each of its 14 members last season, Holiday Bowl revenue is a small piece of a large pie.

Four players were initially suspended for three games earlier this season while the police investigated allegations by a woman, who said several players pressured her into having sex with them after a season-opening win over Oregon State. No arrests or charges were made and the players, who maintained the sex was consensual, were reinstated after a judge lifted a restraining order.