Nervous yet, Big Orange Nation? Concerned that your day in NCAA court is almost here? Worried about meeting your maker, so to speak?
By this time a week from now, the University of Tennessee brass will have completed its defense of alleged wrongs before the NCAA Committee on Infractions.
The short-term future of the athletic department will be somewhat determined by how that committee views UT’s defense of former basketball coach Bruce Pearl and his staff and ex-football coach Lane Kiffin and his staff.
Will the committee agree that since both groups have moved on, that because UT eventually – though belatedly – dismissed Pearl, that because the Volunteers have appeared to gain little competitive advantage by their misdeeds, that justice has largely been served?
Will it merely strip UT’s two most high-profile men’s programs of a scholarship or two each, place them on three years probation and close this case for good?