A week that began with the University of Tennessee's chancellor stating the NCAA is failing in its efforts to provide guidance to its member institutions on the matter of name, image and likeness compensation continued Thursday afternoon with UT athletic director Danny White echoing Donde Plowman's sentiment.
White posted on social media that he has received many inquiries about the NCAA investigating Tennessee on potential NIL violations and wanted "those in the college athletics community" to hear directly from him. He was hired by Plowman in January 2021 amid an NCAA investigation into football violations that transpired under former Volunteers coach Jeremy Pruitt.
"The NCAA generally does not comment on infractions cases because there is a rule against it," White said. "However, that has not stopped them in the past from leaking information to the media as they did this week about us. Their actions made this ill-conceived investigation public and forced us to defend ourselves. It is clear that the NCAA staff does not understand what is happening at the campus level all over the country in the NIL space. After reviewing thousands of Tennessee coach and personnel phone records, NCAA investigators didn't find a single NIL violation, so they moved the goalpost to fit a predetermined outcome.
"They are stating that the nebulous, contradictory NIL guidelines (written by the NCAA, not the membership) don't matter and are applying the old booster bylaws to collectives. If that's the case, then 100% of the major programs in college athletics have significant violations. This is obviously silly and not productive, as is blaming the membership whenever they are challenged."
Sports Illustrated was the first media outlet to report the investigation Tuesday afternoon, with ESPN revealing later that day that the case revolves around the Knoxville-based Spyre Sports Group and its Volunteer Club collective. Plowman has been aware of the investigation and took issue with it in a letter Monday to NCAA president Charlie Baker that labeled the allegations "factually untrue" and "procedurally flawed."
NCAA enforcement officials met with Tennessee athletic officials Monday, but the school has yet to receive a notice of allegations from the governing body.
"The leaders of intercollegiate athletics owe it to student-athletes and their families to establish clear rules and to act in their best interest," Plowman wrote to Baker. "Instead, two and a half years of vague and contradictory NCAA memos, emails and 'guidance' about name, image and likeness has created extraordinary chaos that student-athletes and institutions are struggling to navigate.
"In short, the NCAA is failing."
Plowman also wrote that it was "inconceivable" that the NCAA's enforcement staff cited the university for its "exemplary cooperation" during the Pruitt investigation only to be a "cautionary example of a lack of institutional control only six months later." Tennessee paid a record $8 million fine as a result of the 18 Level I violations that occurred during Pruitt's three-year tenure.
On Wednesday, the attorneys general of Tennessee and Virginia filed an antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA that challenged its ban on using NIL compensation in the recruitment of college athletes, as well as a response to its investigation of UT.
"We need to be spending our time and energy on solutions to better organize college athletics in the NIL era – something that the NCAA leadership failed to do back in 2021," White said. "Student-athletes, prospective student-athletes, coaches and administrators across the country deserve better, and I refuse to allow the NCAA to irrationally use Tennessee as an example for their own agenda."
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.