The NCAA punished former Tennessee Vols head coach Jeremy Pruitt late last summer with a six-year show-cause penalty for recruiting infractions that occurred at UT between 2018 and 2020.
The football program at Tennessee was accused by the NCAA of eighteen Level I rule breaches for receiving illegal recruiting perks totaling approximately $60,000.
Pruitt’s show-cause ban, which runs through July 2029, is accompanied by an automatic one-year suspension from the NCAA, which was imposed by the organization on the former Tennessee head coach. Pruitt will therefore be required to sit out a year if he is hired by a college football program, making it practically difficult for a program to hire him.
And it ought not to be the situation.
Pruitt has one of the strongest defensive minds in the game, even in spite of his difficulties as Tennessee’s head coach. He ought to be playing college football and this autumn, he ought to be on the sidelines. especially in light of the fact that Pruitt’s $60,000 fine has effectively barred him from participating in the sport until the end of the decade.
Given that NIL collectives are currently offering players millions of dollars as inducements, doesn’t it seem a little ridiculous?
No one in the sport would have even noticed if Pruitt and his crew had broken the law a few years later. The guidelines regarding player payments have been abandoned. However, Pruitt’s exclusion from the sport continues because to the $60,000.
In other words, quarterback Jaden Rashada of the Georgia Bulldogs filed a lawsuit this week claiming Florida head coach Billy Napier promised his father $1 million when he signed a contract with the Gators.
Over the past few years, college football has undergone a radical change from covert payments and cash slipped into players’ pockets to open communication.
Even Reggie Bush, a former running back for USC who was accused of receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in improper favors, received his Heisman Trophy back from the Heisman Trust.
Pruitt is still unable to be a college football coach.
During his tenure at Tennessee, Pruitt committed a few errors. Perhaps his greatest error, though, was not keeping more to himself. Ultimately, you would be naive to believe that Pruitt’s $60,000 in unapproved compensation represented a singular instance in college football. The fact that Pruitt (and/or his staff) were exposed is the sole distinction between them and the majority of other head coaches in the sport. He will now have to miss the most of the next ten years while his former teammates get to give out large sums of money and the NCAA grudgingly nods in agreement.
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