Tennessee football: Why Jeremy Pruitt’s scorched earth plan might work

On the surface, former Tennessee football head coach Jeremy Pruitt looks desperate. He was fired for cause and would like to reach a settlement to get some of his buyout money, so his lawyer accuses the administration and other programs of cheating, implicating Phillip Fulmer and former Tennessee basketball head coach Rick Barnes.

Fulmer and Barnes responding in such a nuclear way suggests they are confident nothing will come of this. However, given the history of the programs, don’t be so sure. Pruitt and his team may be onto something. Anybody who has followed Rocky Top in recent years should know that.

Remember, Fulmer himself was once under investigation by the NCAA as Tennessee football’s head coach. His successor, Lane Kiffin, left the Vols under a barrage of NCAA investigations his one year there. Two Tennessee basketball head coaches have been fired in the past decade for NCAA violations, and they came within a four-year span. Simply put, this may go deeper than we know.

It all started Tuesday when Michael Lyons, Pruitt’s lawyer, set an Oct. 29 deadline for the university to reach a settlement with Pruitt and threatened a lawsuit two sides can’t reach a settlement. According to a letter that Blake Toppmeyer of USA TODAY got hold of, he went after Phillip Fulmer and Tennessee basketball coach Rick Barnes.

Pruitt, who was fired in January after accusations of improper benefits launched an NCAA investigation, is now a defensive analyst with the New York Giants. He would have been owed $13 million if fired without cause. However, he was fired from Tennessee football for cause, so the Vols don’t owe him anything. This is the sticking point.

It seems as if Pruitt is trying to reach some sort of payday, and that’s why he went after both Fulmer and Barnes. The claim is that they are aware of recruiting violations involving the administration, including Fulmer, previous football staffs and other sports, including Barnes and the men’s basketball program.

Neither took kindly to those actions. Fulmer, who hired Pruitt in December of 2017, lashed out and said Pruitt has nobody to blame but himself, according to an article by Mark Schlabach and Chris Low of ESPN. Here’s what he said.

"“The days I interviewed each candidate for the head football coaching position at the University of Tennessee, including Jeremy Pruitt, I emphasized that you did not have to cheat to win at the University of Tennessee and that cheating would not be tolerated. Jeremy has no one to blame but himself for his firing from UT. He had a great opportunity at a great university, and he simply screwed it up.”"

In a rare moment of candor, Barnes also went after Pruitt, touting the university’s integrity and his own track record over his seven years as head coach of the Tennessee basketball program. This is what he said on the matter.

"“I’m really disappointed that Jeremy would throw people’s names around that he knows did nothing but support him the entire time he was here and make these unsubstantiated claims. I would invite the NCAA to come in any day of the week and investigate our program. I have too much respect for our players, our school and our administration for somebody to ever think we were not doing things right here and make such ridiculous statements.“Jeremy is not here because of the decisions he made and the way he led his program. Here’s what I know: Our university has done everything it possibly can in working with the NCAA to clean up the mess he left behind and bring this to closure.”"

You know your university brings some entertaining drama when a recently disgraced fired head coach goes is in a public war of words against the man who hired him, a hall-of-fame head coach at that school himself, and one of the winningest active coaches in another sport at the school. Such is the situation the Vols find themselves in right now.

Obviously, on the surface, this looks like a desperate move. On the other hand, there has been so much smoke involving the Tennessee football and Tennessee basketball programs the past 20 years, how could anybody just ignore what he’s saying?

Pruitt was coaching high school in Alabama when Fulmer was investigated by the NCAA for academic fraud in 1999, which you can read about here. He was also in that state when Tee Martin, a product of Alabama and a member of Pruitt’s staff, admitted to taking money from the university, which you can read about here.

In between those two stories, the Crimson Tide, where Pruitt graduated from and coached as a graduate assistant in 1997, were hit with probation because of booster Logan Young and the recruitment of Memphis prospect Albert Means. There has always been suspicion that Fulmer turned Alabama in on that to get them to look away from his program.

Heck, Fulmer “retired” as athletic director on the same day Pruitt’s firing was announced. Does anybody really believe that happened? Of course not. Fulmer was effectively forced out after Pruitt’s firing, as conventional wisdom was that if Pruitt’s dirty, Fulmer has to be dirty.

Taking that into account, you can’t just dismiss what the former Tennessee football coach is saying. Kiffin’s one year of investigations adds to the fire, as do the firings of Bruce Pearl and Donnie Tyndall from Tennessee basketball.

Pearl’s Auburn Tigers were then named in 2017 in that infamous FBI probe, one that put two staff members on leave and got them banned from postseason play this past year. Again, you have to assume that also happened on Rocky Top.

Then there’s the 2018 Yahoo report about mass levels of NCAA violations in college basketball. Multiple Texas Longhorns players were named in that as players who received impermissible benefits while Barnes was there. That same year, ESPN reported that Barnes committed a minor violation by paying one of his assistants out of his own pocket.

Taking all this into account, the Vols should settle. Look, what Pruitt is doing seems desperate. However, there is a long history of coaches with UT committing violations there and elsewhere, and Tennessee football is already under investigation by the NCAA. The last thing they need is more to come out. Don’t call Pruitt’s bluff for pride. It’s just not worth it.