Former Florida State defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt has had a lengthy coaching career that dates back to being a graduate assistant at the University of Alabama in the late 1990s. From there, he went on to coach defenses at Alabama, Georgia, and Florida State before becoming the head coach at Tennessee.
He most recently had a stint as a defensive assistant in the NFL with the New York Giants, but now some of his college coaching days are starting to emerge in the courts during his time at Tennessee, to be specific.
Pruitt’s dismissal would be water under the bridge in today’s college football world. The major part of the investigation that led up to his firing was an accusation that he, among other staff members, was paying players, which is a now-defunct rule in the NIL era.
“Jeremy Pruitt is one of the coaches who has been subject to an unfair, wrongful, and inconsistent NCAA investigation and ruling with potentially career-ending penalties,” the complaint states. “The
NCAA conspired with the University of Tennessee (“UT) and others to make Jeremy the
sacrificial lamb for conduct that long preceded his tenure at UT.”
Tennessee’s then-athletic director, Phillip Fulmer, announced his retirement at the same time as Pruitt’s firing, although the top brass in Knoxville, Tennessee, denied the connection. According to the report, another interesting allegation is that “The firing occurred with the Chancellor of UT admitting, ‘Jeremy, we know you haven’t done anything wrong.'”
Tennessee was fined $8 million as the NCAA cited the school’s “exemplary cooperation” in the investigation regarding 18 rules violations, which has raised many eyebrows in Pruitt’s legal team.
It hasn’t been uncommon for the NCAA to cherry-pick its cases and when to enforce a rule or turn the other way in the past. If Pruitt’s claims are true, it just shows the extent of the complex whirling machine of the governing body of college athletics.
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