| FTBL Tennessee / Pruitt sanctions announced
- Thread starter Scrape&Search1032
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Justneedme81
Member
Justneedme81
Member
within 6 to 12 weeks.
BamaFan334
Member
But Pruitt is also suing Tennessee, correct? Do these cases have any bearing on the other when it comes to danctions or a "plea"?
Justneedme81
Member
So, That's where it matters down the road. I don't think SI article is quite accurate.
Scrape&Search1032
Member
I know this is a long process, but I hope it's resolved sooner than that. Would like to know his situation as early as possible. But I fear you're right, if not more.
X
XXL TideFan
NCAA....8 years 11 months 28 days 23hrs probably
Sounds about right. Fine with me.
S
SEC Sports
Jeremy Pruitt is just a sideshow. Real showdown is Tennessee vs NCAA | Toppmeyer
Tennessee taking its years-long football investigation to an NCAA hearing indicates trouble at the 11th hour. The NCAA may prove a fickle friend.
Danny White described the NCAA as Tennessee’s “partner” in the early days of a yearslong investigation into sweeping rules violations that occurred within coach Jeremy Pruitt’s football program.
Tennessee’s athletics director touted the well-oiled relationship between UT’s outside counsel and NCAA enforcement.
Now, though, judgment day nears, and UT’s once-reassuring outlook on this NCAA probe apparently has soured.
Honeymoon’s over, folks. A wolf in sheep’s clothing may have lured the Vols into a trap.
After forging a cozy relationship with NCAA investigators, Tennessee appears headed for a contentious resolution with the Committee on Infractions, the NCAA’s equivalent of a judge.
Instead of agreeing to sanctions with a negotiated resolution that equates to a plea deal, the Vols will argue their case in front of the infractions committee during an April 19-21 hearing in Cincinnati.
Surely, the Vols aren’t prolonging this to quibble over minor penalties. If the NCAA had offered to let Tennessee off with a slap on the wrist while sending Pruitt’s career to the incinerator, Tennessee’s administration should shake the NCAA’s hand, swallow the tolerable sanctions and say, "Pleasure doing business with you."
That's why Tennessee taking its case to an NCAA hearing indicates trouble at the 11th hour.
Postseason ban-level trouble? That's unclear, but any stiff punishment would come as backfire in the face of Tennessee's strategy to cooperate with the NCAA, not self-impose stiffer penalties, and its rejection of a more amicable settlement with Pruitt.
NCAA enforcement, last summer, said Tennessee failed to monitor its football program while Pruitt and his lackeys made a mockery of the rules and funneled almost $60,000 in cash and gifts to athletes, recruits, and players’ family members.
The degree to which Tennessee is sanctioned for that Level I failure to monitor charge will be crucial to the Vols' ability to build momentum under third-year UT coach Josh Heupel, who has restored the program to its best footing in two decades.
This case is a litmus test for whether NCAA enforcement has evolved beyond punishing athletes who were not involved in the scandal.
Tennessee may face threat of stiff NCAA sanctions
Tennessee is a guinea pig of sorts after the NCAA's new constitution went into effect last August. Previously, institutions that cooperated with NCAA investigators left themselves vulnerable to stiff punishment, including postseason bans, from the infractions committee.Tennessee’s hopes that its cooperation would be honored are pinned to one sentence in the NCAA’s 20-page constitution, which says that “to the greatest extent possible … penalties imposed for infractions do not punish programs or student-athletes not involved nor implicated in the infraction.”
In other words, this constitution outlines a reduced chance for a postseason ban or other penalties that punish current athletes for sins of a past regime.
The NCAA, though, hasn't let UT off the hook. It maintains Tennessee failed to monitor coaches and staff members who flouted rules. NCAA enforcement compiled evidence of a whopping 18 Level I violations.
As Tennessee Chancellor Donde Plowman described it in January 2021, Pruitt and his associates carried out a “stunning” amount of malfeasance. UT evicted the bad seeds, but that never ensured absolution.
The NCAA labeled Tennessee’s failure to monitor as “substantial” and said this “seriously undermined or threatened the integrity” of college sports.
Tennessee's inability to negotiate an acceptable resolution with the NCAA, its old partner, makes me wonder how severe the penalties could be and whether those penalties might include a postseason ban after Tennessee brazenly opted to not self-impose a bowl ban in 2021.
Makes me wonder if the NCAA was unmoved by UT’s self-imposed sanctions that included recruiting restrictions and a reduction of 12 scholarships for the 2021 season.
Makes me wonder if UT was foolish to invite NCAA suits to have an uninhibited look under its hood and meticulously document the mess that had occurred underneath.
Makes me continue to question Tennessee’s decision to not fire Phillip Fulmer.
Fulmer, the former longtime Vols football coach turned athletics director, was omnipresent around Pruitt’s program. The SEC even banned Fulmer from attending practice for a week after he violated NCAA rules by helping coach Tennessee’s offensive line during practice when he was AD.
Fulmer has spent most of his life in or around UT’s football program. He was hired as AD in part because of his Tennessee football expertise. Nonetheless, Tennessee's administration insisted it was unreasonable to think Fulmer should have known about the malfeasance occurring under his nose. Fulmer, the university maintained, was among those hoodwinked by a clandestine operation carried out by a first-time coach, his wife, their babysitter and a few aides still wet behind the ears.
Fulmer spoke at Tennessee's news conference to announce Pruitt's firing, and the university sent Fulmer off with back-claps and a retirement package.
I wonder how that was received by the NCAA.
Jeremy Pruitt a sideshow at NCAA hearing, while Vols' fate is main event
Pruitt will be in Cincinnati, too, to say his piece and face the music. Until now, Tennessee and the NCAA held the megaphone. This marks Pruitt’s chance to tell his side of the story, but Pruitt is a sideshow. He's roadkill, flattened by Tennessee, the NCAA, his losing record and his own carelessness.Knowing Pruitt’s personality, I wouldn’t be surprised if he intends to blowtorch Tennessee at the hearing, but I question whether he has enough fuel to inflict further damage. If Pruitt had an ace up his sleeve, he should have played it and sued Tennessee for the $12.6 million buyout he did not receive after UT fired him for cause. Pruitt’s lawyer threated a fiery lawsuit. It never happened.
Pruitt faces the likelihood of a show-cause penalty. But, the showdown of greater consequence is Tennessee vs. the NCAA and the verdict from that failure to monitor charge.
A test of the NCAA’s new constitution – and judgement day for Tennessee’s cooperation strategy
In the past few years, the NCAA kneecapped Missouri athletics and Oklahoma State basketball with postseason bans after those programs cooperated with investigations.Other scandalous programs such as North Carolina basketball and Baylor football escaped stiff penalties after playing hardball with the NCAA and deploying clever defenses.
Tennessee’s public relations campaign has persistently pumped optimism throughout this investigation and downplayed the possibility of a postseason ban, directing the spotlight on the fired coaches.
The NCAA is in a state of transition, and Charlie Baker became the association's president in March. If the Committee on Infractions hammers Tennessee despite its cooperation, the NCAA's new constitution will be unmasked as being altered in language but unchanged in principle.
Historically, the NCAA would cheer a school’s “exemplary cooperation" before levying crippling sanctions.
The NCAA hailed Tennessee’s partnership in this probe, but the university’s compliant approach also became self-serving. The festering malfeasance allowed Tennessee to fire its losing coach for cause on the heels of a 3-7 season and not pay Pruitt severance. Just four months earlier, UT had rushed into a contract extension that increased Pruitt’s buyout.
The Vols got a fresh start with minor self-imposed penalties, the NCAA got cooperation, Fulmer got a retirement package and Pruitt got a pink slip.
Now, the other shoe drops.
The NCAA is no longer Tennessee’s friend. I’m not sure it ever was – just a black widow that became a convenient partner as Tennessee fired its failing coach, while the Vols incautiously endangered themselves of getting trapped in the NCAA’s web.
Justneedme81
Member
Why hasn't Pruitt sued Tennessee ? Is he waiting for the decision before suing?
Bammerboy321
Member
These articles always come out. Then in the end, the NCAA shows how weak and powerless they are.
TerryP
Staff
One of the issues the SEC had with Pruitt was the rumor of a lawsuit. His consideration at UA was taken seriously. The timing, as well as not knowing the resolution, is the reason he isn't on staff today.
50+yeartidefan
Member
Tennessee has sidestepped penalties more than AU hasnt.
Kramer was big time booster/fan and always kept them alerted.
Or so it was surmised
Time to bring hammer to zvols
But
Look for nail to be on Pruitt and feather on vols.
Kramer was big time booster/fan and always kept them alerted.
Or so it was surmised
Time to bring hammer to zvols
But
Look for nail to be on Pruitt and feather on vols.
TerryP
Staff
Why didn't they accept UT's self imposed?
