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Jeremy Pruitt is taking his fight with the NCAA to court. The former Tennessee head coach filed a $100 million lawsuit Thursday in DeKalb County, Alabama, claiming the NCAA “conspired” with Tennessee to make him a “scapegoat” in their recruiting violations investigation, according to court documents obtained by Yahoo Sports.
The lawsuit doesn’t pull any punches. Pruitt alleges Tennessee and the NCAA worked together to avoid paying him millions in buyout money he believes he’s owed.
“The NCAA let Tennessee investigate itself,” the filing states. “With Tennessee’s lawyers controlling the investigation, the university had every reason to pin everything on Pruitt. They needed a way to justify not paying his contract buyout and other incentives.”
Pruitt’s legal team argues he never got a fair shot at defending himself.
The timing is interesting too. The lawsuit claims the NCAA punished Pruitt in 2023 using rules that should’ve been thrown out after the Supreme Court’s 2021 ruling that opened the door for NIL payments to players.
Tennessee fired Pruitt back in January 2021 following their internal investigation into recruiting violations.
A Costly Investigation
The NCAA’s findings were damning. Their Committee on Infractions report identified over 200 violations during Pruitt’s tenure — 18 of them Level I (the most serious category).
Pruitt got hit with a six-year show cause penalty that essentially keeps him sidelined from college coaching.
Tennessee escaped relatively unscathed. No postseason ban came their way — mostly because they cooperated fully with investigators. They did face probation, vacated wins, and lost some scholarships.
The violations weren’t minor. According to the NCAA, Pruitt or his wife directly paid at least two players who later enrolled at Tennessee. One player’s family received $7,600 for car down payments and rental property, plus about $500 monthly for car payments at least 25 different times.
In another case, Pruitt gave $3,000 to a recruit’s mother who couldn’t afford a medical procedure due to existing medical debt. He added $300 more to help with gas expenses.
Even in today’s NIL era, these direct payments from coaches to recruits would still violate NCAA rules.
