Former University of Tennessee football coach Jeremy Pruitt has filed a $100 million lawsuit against the NCAA, claiming it conspired with the university to make him a "sacrificial lamb."
As reported by ESPN, Pruitt was fired for cause by Tennessee in January 2021 and didn't receive any of his $12.6 million buyout after an internal investigation revealed what chancellor Donde Plowman said were serious violations of NCAA rules. On July 14, 2023, the NCAA sanctioned Pruitt with a six-year show cause penalty, including a yearlong suspension from coaching in games and recruiting off campus in his first year back in the event he returned to coaching at the college level.
"Pruitt has not coached in college football since," wrote ESPN's Chris Low, adding that at least one other SEC school has shown interest in hiring Pruitt, sources told ESPN, but was dissuaded from doing so by superiors at its university and/or the conference office. Pruitt is currently helping coach his Alabama high school alma mater, Plainview, with his father, Dale Pruitt.
In the lawsuit filed Wednesday in DeKalb County, Alabama, Pruitt alleges that Tennessee was paying players before he was hired in December 2017, and that when he notified then-athletic director Phillip Fulmer of the illegal payments, Fulmer said "he would handle it" through the university's compliance department.
Tennessee issued a response Thursday through a spokesperson that read: "The university is confident in the actions taken in the Pruitt case. We will continue to prioritize our student-athletes and winning with integrity," ESPN reported.
Pruitt, who went 16-19 in Knoxville from 2018 through 2020, claims in the lawsuit that he suffered damages, including lost wages and other compensation, future lost wages and other compensation, damage to his reputation, emotional distress and mental anguish and other compensatory damages — all related to NCAA actions. "He is claiming that the damages will exceed $100 million," Low wrote, "but would also allow a jury to determine an amount."
Pruitt's attorneys in the suit argue that the NCAA punished Pruitt for something — paying athletes — that is no longer illegal.
"The complaint also notes that shortly after Tennessee's hearing before the NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions in April 2023, that the state of Tennessee and its attorney general sued the NCAA and successfully obtained a legal ruling that prohibited the NCAA from using its rules to prohibit NIL or inducements of any kind from going to players," Low reported.
"Jeremy Pruitt may be the last coach in America to be punished for impermissible player benefits," his attorneys stated in his complaint.
According to Low, Pruitt alleges in the lawsuit that Plowman told him, "Jeremy, we know you haven't done anything wrong" while meeting with him to serve notice of intent to terminate his position as head coach of the UT football program, which triggered a multiyear investigatory process leading to what Pruitt's legal team called a "farcical hearing."
The lawsuit alleges that the university had a vested interest in the predetermined outcome of the investigation and that the NCAA effectively established a "tribunal" that would accomplish three things: Pruitt taking the blame, the University of Tennessee being commended and the university having cover to avoid paying Pruitt's buyout.
"The investigation was intentionally limited to avoid examining historical misconduct at UT, which long preceded Jeremy and was hidden from him," according to the lawsuit, which alleges negligence, wantonness, tortious interference with existing and prospective business relationships, conspiracy and bad faith on the part of the NCAA and eight unnamed defendants, identified as "fictitious defendants One through Eight."
The NCAA placed Tennessee on five years of probation in 2023. The football program was docked 28 scholarships but avoided a bowl ban. The university was hit with a fine totaling close to $9 million, which the NCAA said was the equivalent to the financial impact the school would have faced had it missed the postseason in 2023 and 2024. It's believed to be the largest fine ever levied in an NCAA infractions case, ESPN reported.
"The NCAA's report said $60,000 in impermissible benefits was part of the 200-plus violations and that both Pruitt and his wife, Casey, made cash payments to players and their families," Low wrote. "The NCAA required Tennessee to vacate all wins and individual records in any game in which 16 sanctioned players participated during Pruitt's three seasons."
