Tennessee received its notice of allegations from the NCAA on Friday, a 51-page document revealing 18 Level I violations - the most egregious kind - that transpired under former Volunteers football coach Jeremy Pruitt.
Beginning in September 2018 and running through the COVID-19 recruiting dead period in 2020, Pruitt, his wife Casey and multiple members of his football staff provided roughly $60,000 of impermissible benefits to more than 20 recruits.
That Tennessee acted quickly by conducting an internal investigation in December 2020 and firing Pruitt and defensive assistants Brian Niedermeyer and Shelton Felton in January 2021 was recognized by the NCAA, which did not cite the university for the dreaded lack of institutional control. Sports Illustrated, citing sources, reported Friday that Tennessee also docked itself 12 scholarships last season.
"Receipt of our Notice of Allegations was an expected, requisite step in this process - a process our university initiated proactively through decisive and transparent actions," Tennessee athletic director Danny White said in a statement. "This moves us one step closer to a final resolution. Until we get to that point, I am unable to discuss the case in any detail.
"As a university, we understand the need to take responsibility for what occurred, but we remain committed to protecting our current and future student-athletes."
Tennessee, which has up to 90 days to respond to the NCAA, began preseason camp last August with 69 scholarship players, according to second-year coach Josh Heupel, who addressed the low numbers during his appearance Thursday at the Southeastern Conference's media days event in Atlanta's College Football Hall of Fame.
"We were the thinnest football team in America – hands down, not even close," Heupel said. "If you look across America, many were playing with 90 to 95 because of COVID seniors. We're deeper than we were, but we're not as deep as we need to be.
"We'll still be under 85."
Pruitt and his staff, according to the NCAA document, hosted at least six prospects and their families on nine unofficial weekend visits during the dead period, providing meals, transportation and lodging amounting to roughly $12,000. Pruitt allegedly made $3,000 and $6,000 payments to the mothers of two recruits, the first for medical bills and the other to help pay for a vehicle.
Seven staff members have been charged in addition to Pruitt, including former defensive coordinator Derrick Ansley, who had not been linked to the violations until Friday.
Pruitt's wife has been accused of making in excess of $13,000 in cash payments to recruits and their families. Sports Illustrated reported Friday that Casey once worked in the compliance office at Troy University, her alma mater, and at Florida State.
After the Butch Jones era bottomed out in 2017 with a 4-8 record, the lone eight-loss season in program history, a calamitous coaching search that started with John Currie as athletic director and ended with Phillip Fulmer in the role yielded Pruitt as Tennessee's new head coach. Having successfully served as Alabama's defensive coordinator under the guidance of Nick Saban, the son of former Marion County High School coach Dale Pruitt stumbled to a 16-19 record in three seasons that contained an embarrassing home loss to Georgia State in the 2019 opener and an 0-9 mark against Alabama, Florida and Georgia, with all nine losses by double figures.
Pruitt spent last season as a defensive assistant with the NFL's New York Giants and recently announced he would take a year away from coaching. Returning to the college ranks could be a challenge for Pruitt given that the NCAA findings revealed that he "failed to demonstrate and promote and atmosphere of compliance."
Fulmer, who coached Tennessee to a 152-52 record from 1992 to 2008 and guided the Vols to their second and most recent Associated Press national championship in 1998, was not mentioned in Friday's NCAA report.
Leacock commits
Friday afternoon's NCAA news did not deter Tennessee on the recruiting front, as the Vols picked up a commitment from three-star prospect Nathan Leacock of Millbrook High in Raleigh, North Carolina. The 6-foot-3, 200-pounder is the nation's No. 77 receiver and the No. 591 overall prospect on the 247Sports.com composite rankings.
Leacock selected the Vols after taking visits last month to Michigan and North Carolina in addition to Tennessee.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.