Jeremy Pruitt's NCAA lawsuit is the height of absurdity
Former Tennessee head coach Jeremy Pruitt has filed suit against the NCAA for lost wages, according to documents obtained by Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports.
Pruitt alleges the NCAA conspired with Tennessee to make him the "sacrificial lamb" for numerous rules violations during his tenure, which resulted in both his firing and a six year showcause order from the organization, essentially preventing him from being hired by another school in that time.
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He alleges that he had rules applied to him in 2023 that had essentially been abolished in 2021, while claiming he “may be the last coach in America to be punished for impermissible player benefits.” To top it off, he alleges that the Vols were paying players before he arrived in Knoxville, and he when he informed athletic director Phillip Fulmer of this fact in 2017, he was told Fulmer "would handle it."
Make no mistake, Pruitt's suit is the height of absurdity. After all, he wasn't ONLY fired for the NCAA violations that occurred under his watch. He was fired because Tennessee went 3-7 in the COVID shortened season under him, and hadn't won more than seven regular season games in three years.
He was fired because, even in his singular 7-5 regular season with the Vols, Tennessee opened the season with losses to Georgia State and BYU at home. Not Georgia, Georgia State. He was fired because he was the third Tennessee coach to lose to Vanderbilt.
He was fired because he was a bad coach. He was fired WITH CAUSE because he was a bad coach who got caught cheating to be bad.
He's trying to walk a legal tightrope here, saying both that he had no idea the NCAA rules violations were occurring under his watch, and also that those rules violations shouldn't matter because by the time the investigation started in January of 2021, the rules were so close to being repealed anyway so it shouldn't matter.
Never mind that all of the violations that led to the showcause being applied to Pruitt happened while all of those rules were still in place. Never mind that him claiming ignorance of the violations shows that he was supposedly unaware of things that, as the head coach of Tennessee football, he absolutely should have been aware were happening, like players getting paid.
If you're Pruitt, you're basically admitting you were bad at your job before you got fired anyway. Either you were aware the rule-breaking was happening, and didn't do anything to stop it, which is bad, or you had no idea the paying players you were aware of in 2017 was still happening, which is ALSO BAD.
Have other coaches who were guilty of similar things gotten other chances? Sure.
Hugh Freeze, who was found to have paid players (among other questionable behaviors) during his time at Ole Miss got another shot at Liberty and is currently the coach at Auburn. But there's a difference between Freeze and Pruitt: Freeze won games at Ole Miss. Nothing Pruitt did at Tenneseee would make it worth trying to get the showcause revoked, or make any team want to take a chance on him.
Does the showcause cost Pruitt money? Absolutely it does. But does he have anyone to blame for that order but himself? Absolutely not.