It wasn’t immediately clear almost three years ago that Jeremy Pruitt’s Tennessee football staff had committed numerous NCAA violations until an inside joke among coaches alerted investigators, documents reveal.
A student worker in the UT football program joked that assistant coach Brian Niedermeyer couldn’t take a pay cut during the COVID-19 pandemic because he needed to pay for nail salon visits for recruits and their families.
Knox News obtained the report of UT’s internal investigation through an open records request. It reveals the events that blew open the case, which led to Pruitt being fired for cause and now receiving a six-year show-cause penalty from the NCAA, which was announced Friday.
Seven UT football assistants and staff member also received show-cause penalties. A show-cause penalty means a university cannot hire a coach or recruiter without NCAA approval during the length of the ban. Pruitt’s show-cause includes a 100% suspension for the first year of employment should an NCAA school hire in him in any athletics position.
UT football was put on five years of probation, including 28 scholarship cuts, recruiting restrictions, vacated wins and a large fine. But it did not get a postseason ban.
On Nov. 13, 2020, UT Chancellor Donde Plowman’s office received a tip from an athletics department staff member. That person said they overheard members of the football program claim that some players were being “paid.”
UT alerted the NCAA and opened an internal investigation. Six days later, the university hired Bond, Schoeneck and King, a law firm specializing in NCAA infractions cases, to investigate further.
That much has been known since January 2021, when Plowman announced the probe and Pruitt’s firing.But the BSK firm’s report reveals where the case took a turn.
“An athletics department staff…
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