MOBILE, AL- The talk around the ongoing Senior Bowl was about the players on the field, until the NCAA and Tennessee decided it was time to fight over NIL regulations. Now, after meeting with the organization on Monday, a battle is brewing between the pair.
It was announced on Monday that the NCAA was looking into potential violations pertaining to NIL and the Tennessee athletic department. At the forefront of these allegations is the recruitment of Vols quarterback Nico Iamaleava, who signed with Josh Heupel just more than one year ago.
One of the most intriguing parts of this whole ordeal is that Tennessee had agreed to a resolution with the NCAA in its case involving Jeremy Pruitt last summer. Now, the Vols athletic department is the subject of an investigation that is looking into potential NIL infractions that doesn’t just involve the football program.
According to a source close to the situation, the move from the NCAA in getting the story out and Tennessee having a statement ready to go in response to potential penalties is a public relations play, because both sides couldn’t agree to a penalty, while also not agreeing to punishment.
In a statement released on Tuesday night, Spyre Sports mentioned through their attorney Tom Mars that the agreement they entered with Nico Iamaleava was not a recruiting tactic and was not to get him to sign with Tennessee through the collective.
This could lead to a courtroom showdown, especially if the NCAA is hanging the ‘lack of institutional control’ over Tennessee’s head.
But, in this era of college athletics, we are starting to see the NCAA investigate schools for potential violations that do not have a set of obvious rules surrounding them. In the case of Name, Image and Likeness, the NCAA has gone out of its way over the years to play dumb when it comes to the current landscape, which almost makes it funny that a lightbulb all of the sudden went off in its head.
Now, both parties could be preparing for a drawn-out fight that could see this case end up in a courtroom.
Tennessee Chancellor Donde Plowman Responds To NCAA
It wasn’t long ago that Tennessee and the NCAA were working together to resolve the Jeremy Pruitt issue that marred the Vols football program. Now, we are seeing two different entities fighting over rules that were truly non-existent just a few years ago.
“As you have seen in our previous dealings with the NCAA, when we are wrong at the University of Tennessee, we admit it,” Chancellor Donde Plowman wrote the NCAA. “We spent more than $1 million on outside counsel to investigate previous problems discovered in our football program that were reported to me, personally, and self-reported the entire case to the NCAA.
“In fact, just last year, the Division I Committee on Infractions as well as the NCAA enforcement staff cited exemplary cooperation by the University of Tennessee and said we set the standard other schools should follow.”
This certainly doesn’t feel like the cohesive unit that worked together to figure out the right way for Tennessee to be punished for recruiting violations under the previous regime. Nope, this feels like two sides that are sharpening their swords, preparing for a battle that could set another standard regarding NIL.
Later in her response to the NCAA, Donde Plowman noted that the allegations presented were factually untrue.
“The NCAA’s allegations are factually untrue and procedurally flawed,” Plowman wrote. “Moreover, it is intellectually dishonest for the NCAA enforcement staff to pursue infractions cases as if student-athletes have no NIL rights and as if institutions all have been functioning post-Alston with a clear and unchanging set of rules and willfully violating them.”
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What Comes Next For Vols And The NCAA?
The New York Times is reporting that part of the investigation centers around a Tennessee collective using a private-jet to fly Nico Iamaleava to Knoxville on a recruiting trip. Now, this could obviously be a major violation if the young man was not already signed by the ‘Vol Club’ and did not have this in his agreement.
Or, it could easily be that the collective rented a plane and flew Iamaleava to Knoxville after an agreement was already signed.
If this was the case, it would be a clear violation, but the NCAA would have to prove this was a violation at the time under the guidelines at the time. This is where Tennessee has come out swinging in-regards to these potential violations.
The school is saying that neither Tennessee, nor any athlete, broke any of the rules that were in-place at the time of these alleged incidents.
“The University of Tennessee complied with the interim NIL policy and guidance as it was put into place by the NCAA. No member institution could follow future guidance prior to it being given, let alone interpreted,” Chancellor Plowman noted to the NCAA.
A Tennessee Volunteers football helmet sits on the sideline prior to the college football game between the Georgia Bulldogs and the Tennessee Volunteers. (Photo by Jeffrey Vest/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
The letter goes on to state that Tennessee representatives asked to meet with NCAA President Charlie Baker, but that request was denied. In his place, the school met with NCAA enforcement staff members on Monday.
According to multiple sources, Tennessee and its legal counsel are prepared for a dogfight in response to any Notice of Allegations presented to the school. Even though this is the case, there are folks inside the athletic department that are nervous the NCAA will try to make an example out of Tennessee, making them a repeat offender coming off the Jeremy Pruitt case.
This will be a pivotal point in the rejuvenation of the Tennessee football program under Josh Heupel, as Donde Plowman finds all of this to be inconceivable, especially the potential for a lack of institutional control violation.
“It is inconceivable that our institution’s leadership would be cited as an example of exemplary leadership in July 2023, then as a cautionary example of a lack of institutional control only six months later.”