Tennessee self-reports multiple recruiting violations to NCAA
The University of Tennessee self-reported several minor recruiting violations that involved its football and women’s basketball team, according to Knoxville television station WATE-TV.
One violation involving the football team related to a paintball game on campus involving several recruits. Since parts of the game’s setup were provided by a company outside the program, it was considered a “special addition” by the NCAA and therefore a violation.
“Some of the university’s imposed sanctions were barring the involved staff member from on-campus recruiting for 30 days, the football program forfeited their three remaining 2019 spring evaluation days, and the football staff was advised that similar future violations may result in potential head coach suspension,” WATE reports, with the SEC limiting the staff’s contact with the recruits in question to “no more than two additional off-campus contacts”.
A 2nd violation involved a meal away from campus during an unofficial visit that several staff members went to with recruits, with those staff members receiving a 2-week recruiting ban.
Finally, 2 violations were reported from the women’s basketball team.
“The coach believed they were returning the call of an AAU coach. However, the missed call was found to be from the daughter of the coach. The daughter is considered an underaged recruit,” according to WATE.
As a result, the coach in question was hit with a 2-week recruiting ban that also prohibited him/her from calling or texting recruits, with the SEC adding an extra week. A minor social media violation was also self-reported and resulted in a re-training course for the staff involved.
Well yeah, that should take care of everything.
So… with cause?
None of these seem that bad really. After all the smoke, I expected it to be worse.
Really?
Much ado about nothing. All minor, all things any school could have accidentally done. If these are the violations they want to use to get rid of Pruitt, good luck.
Whew…was worried about the coach getting fired. He’s bringing the program back. Just need to stick with him for another 10-15 years. He’ll get his recruits in place by then.
whoa there buddy, let’s not get anxious – realistically, Pruitt would need 20-25 years.. remember, he has to develop them too.
Exactly-losing Wanya, Henry T, and others is just a bump in the road for our talented coach. As long as we continue taking the sage advice of SDS and other teams’ fans and retain Pruitt, all will work out. Remember, they know best regarding a program they don’t follow. 6 win or less seasons will close the recruiting gap.
So organizing a paintball game for recruits in the athletic facilities, in which the coaches participated is minor? You do realize this was a dead period (I’m sure the coaches knew). That means no in person contact with recruits and no tour of facilities. It was no accident and other schools did not do stuff like this. It’s not the same as “bumping” into recruits. This is major.
Coaches were not even permitted to be organizing events.
I retract everything I said. lol…this was 2019, not 2020.
Wow. So … nothing. UT can’t even pull off a decent cheating scandal.
These are nothing. Just keep Pruitt and all the coaches and administration. They’re on the right track. Heading to a championship in what? 15-20 years? Sounds about right.
I wonder if this investigation turned up nothing because they no longer need the results of the investigation in order to remove Pruitt?
One can only hope.
Tennessee doesn’t need a level 1 violation to fire him with cause.
They met with him Thursday for at least 8 hours. They presented him with many violations.
He will be fired with a settlement hopefully by this Sunday.
Randy Boyd is smart enough not to dig too deep and he does not want to ruin JP. It serves no purpose.
Make no mistake, Randy Boyd is in charge, not Fat Phil.
You dare call yourself a Volunteers fan, yet run down our Hall of Fame coach and alumni?
Any guesstimate as to the legal bill for the investigation?
Is recruiting a must improve factor compared to ?staff ?training? Etc. etc. I’m curious what Vol fans think.
Honestly, compared to what the results have been, I think recruiting has been pretty good. The staff has been involved with a lot of high profile recruits. I can’t help but think that if the on-field results were better, they would have landed more of them as well. If I were to try and guess where things were going wrong, I really see three big things. First, I’ve not felt good about the team discipline. Every time it looks like we’re going to make progress, someone commits a HUGE penalty and kills the teams momentum. This has hurt us big in almost every game. Second, It seems like Pruitt is dogmatically attached to running particular schemes and isn’t optimizing for the players he has, and third, He hasn’t been able to find/ develop good quarterback play. There is hope on the horizon here, but I need to see proof of it.
I think that if Pruitt had fixed any one of these for 2020, the team would have performed much better. Fix 2 of them and I think we’re a pretty good team. Fix all 3 and we could have won a lot of games.
1 of 10 top in-state guys. Yes-recruiting is an issue. However, even Daddy’s Boy Dooley and Bama’s Greatest Intern could bring in some talent. The bigger needs are first to develop talent-which hasn’t happened with any recruit in the Pruitt era and to coach at a competent level in games. If these, especially the former, aren’t accomplished, you’re just waiting to be fired. This is where the program presently is and we’ll see the firing probably in the middle of next season, with Steele as interim.
I agree with what your saying, however, I see recruiting as a problem caused by the other problems and not the primary problem itself. I think it’s also telling that people weren’t talking about in game coaching as a problem until this year. In the previous two years, people were overall happy with the coaching. I see it as a fixable problem and not that the coaches are just bad at their jobs.
I’d heard that Coach Niedemeyer has some issues with the Amarius Sims recruiting? Also, that coaches’ contracts hadn’t been extended? Self reporting is a nice way for teams to “resolve” these types of claims, without much push back from the NCAA. Kinda like a slap on the wrist at most.
I’ve heard the same concerning Mims and Niedemeyer. I had also heard that Georgia had some recruiting issues with Mims of their own. Credible journalists have dismissed both as click bait headlines.
Self reported and what the NCAA digs up are two different things.
Thank you!!! UT is not outta the woods yet.
Being a head coach at a Power 5 member is not an easy juggling act to maintain. But it gets harder when you have decision makers breathing down your neck for results right now. Tennessee has been all over the chart in terms of talent and coaching skill since they been a division opponent of Missouri. Missouri finished 3rd in the SEC East this year but remember the solid game Tennessee beat Missouri with early on. Demanding fast success can work sometimes but it can also backfire and
push any chance of success further out into the future. I’m ok with anybody winning the East next year except Florida or Georgia. And if every opponent in the East stepped onto the field with that attitude next year neither of them would win it.
A meal was involved. With all the problems with money, boosters and loss of control by administrations, this is like a nothing sandwich. But it is a rule no matter how silly in light of what is coming in college football. Hired players who are calling the shots…or else a boycott. The horses are already out of the barn, why try to close the door now on amateur athletics.