After an appeal by Jeremy Pruitt, former Tennessee head football coach, the NCAA Division I Infractions Appeals Committee affirmed the findings of violations related to recruiting, impermissible benefits and ethical conduct rules. The appealed violations stem from payments made to the mothers of a prospective student-athlete and a current student-athlete and the provision of misleading information regarding those payments.
On July 14, 2023, the NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions issued its decision regarding the Tennessee football program and Pruitt. After the committee issued this decision, Pruitt filed an appeal asserting that the findings of violations regarding monetary benefits were not supported by the case record, which in turn would then not support a finding that he provided false or misleading information during the investigation. Generally, he challenged the credibility of the information used by the Committee on Infractions to determine its decision. In addition to the appealed findings, the Committee on Infractions also found that Pruitt violated other recruiting, impermissible benefits and head coach responsibility rules. He did not appeal those other findings.
After review of the case record, the Infractions Appeals Committee affirmed the appealed findings of violations because Pruitt failed to demonstrate that there was a lack of information in the case record to support the decision by the Committee on Infractions. Additionally, he failed to show that no reasonable person would have made the same determinations based on the credibility of the witnesses and information.
The members of the Infractions Appeals Committee who heard this case were Ellen M. Ferris, committee chair and senior associate commissioner for governance and compliance at the American Athletic Conference; Jonathan Alger, president of James Madison; Tom Goss, insurance chairman and executive; Allison Rich, director of athletics at New Hampshire; and Julie Vannatta, retired senior associate general counsel for athletics at Ohio State.
