Jeremy Pruitt bout to sing on UcheaT boosters

[81usaf92]

In any case, as another poster correctly pointed out, Pruitt himself wasn't nailed for presiding over boosters paying players. He was nailed because he, his wife, and his staff paid the players directly. That's what led to the show cause. And to the extent that it matters anymore, it's still against NCAA rules around eligibility.

I think that is the key part of this. Too many people keep acting like what he did was the same as what Dubose and Carroll did in blaming a rogue booster for paying a player that they really wanted… Yes that is legal now. But what Pruitt, his wife, and his staff did was directly give cash to players. That isn’t legal even with the current NIL rules. DeBoer can not just give a player 500k to stay at Alabama, he would have to go through a booster or a collective to do it. Yeah we all know what really is happening but there are clear steps you have to take to make them legal.

Other than painting Butch Jones in a negative light, I’m still struggling to see where this is going unless he has proof that the NCAA truly conspired with Tennessee against him. Maybe he does but based on what is currently being reported i just don’t see it.

 

[4Q Basket Case]

Other than painting Butch Jones in a negative light, I’m still struggling to see where this is going unless he has proof that the NCAA truly conspired with Tennessee against him. Maybe he does but based on what is currently being reported i just don’t see it.

I would love that. Given the practice both the NCAA and Fulmer have with how to execute a conspiracy, I doubt Pruitt has any evidence. But I would love it if he did.

 

[NoNC4Tubs]

I would love that. Given the practice both the NCAA and Fulmer have with how to execute a conspiracy, I doubt Pruitt has any evidence. But I would love it if he did.

He could always fish for evidence with a subpoena....

 

[DawgAlum2054]

One thing I have learned in life, is that there are people in a different level of status quo that are essentially untouchable.

Jimmy Haslam has donated over 100 million dollars to UT and has a net worth of over 8 billion dollars. Do you really think someone like that is just going to roll over? Or let you hit some of their friends with a bus?

We can act like Heupel is the head coach for UT football, but Heupel would get up out of bed to take the trash out for Haslam if he told him to.

It is just one example. The coaches who can not figure out how to play in the sandbox with the boosters, especially in the SEC, never last. Look at Harsin for example. Harsin took a 3 year break before he could get everything lined back up to be an OC on the west coast after the auburn boosters took it to him.


Pruitt better have mounting evidence against boosters, and the boosters better have no evidence/dirty laundry against him....

 

[DawgAlum2054]

Also, Pruitt should have just stayed DC at Bama until Saban retired.

Im sure he would have gotten to the point of making over 2 million a year at DC, and he left for 3.8 million a year at UT...

 

[4Q Basket Case]

Pruitt better have mounting evidence against boosters, and the boosters better have no evidence/dirty laundry against him....

I don't know what evidence, if any, Pruitt has on any boosters.

But even if he has hard irrefutable proof positive, I'm not seeing why that might matter.

Boosters paying players isn't illegal anymore. And the NCAA has already said it won't pursue cases where boosters paid players before the O'Bannon decision.

So even if Pruitt has them cold, nothing will happen to either the booster(s) individually or UTe as an institution.

For the life of me, I can't see why Pruitt outing boosters paying for play (assuming he can actually do that and prove it) has any impact on anything.

 

[4Q Basket Case]

Also, Pruitt should have just stayed DC at Bama until Saban retired.

Im sure he would have gotten to the point of making over 2 million a year at DC, and he left for 3.8 million a year at UT...

Yeah, Chip Kelly seems to be the first to have figured that out. He voluntarily left a HC spot at UCLA to be the OC at tOSU, and recently voluntarily left that to be the OC for the Raiders. True, he had several HC jobs (college and pro) before, made a lot of money at them, then got nice goodbye kisses when he got fired.

Point being, he'd already scratched the itch to be a HC and made generational money doing it. Now, he's not the face of the program, he doesn't have the headaches of roster management, dealing with boosters / alumni / fans / owners, and he can go out in public without being gawked at and pursued for pictures / autographs. At tOSU, he made $2 million a year. At the Raiders, it's $6 million, and he doesn't have all the headaches.

Pleeeeezzzzeee don't throw me in that briar patch!

Late Add: For the OFC: Homer Smith also had it figured out in the late 1980s. If you don't qualify for the OFC, look him up. He had been a HC at either Army or Navy (not sure which) and Pacific. Got fired from both, and was bitter about it for a while.

But he eventually came to terms with the situation and his own limitations. Whereupon he made it his business to become the best OC and QB coach in the game. Mission accomplished.

If Homer Smith had been able to scheme with OLs 3-5 yards downfield, legal offensive interference (a/k/a "rub routes") and rules restricting DBs hitting WRs, I have no doubt that his offenses would have set records that still stand today.

I wish I had known him personally. I think we would have had a great friendship. Unfortunately, I never met him, not even just to shake his hand.

 

[Tideflyer]

Yeah, Chip Kelly seems to be the first to have figured that out. He voluntarily left a HC spot at UCLA to be the OC at tOSU, and recently voluntarily left that to be the OC for the Raiders. True, he had several HC jobs (college and pro) before, made a lot of money at them, then got nice goodbye kisses when he got fired.

Point being, he'd already scratched the itch to be a HC and made generational money doing it. Now, he's not the face of the program, he doesn't have the headaches of roster management, dealing with boosters / alumni / fans / owners, and he can go out in public without being gawked at and pursued for pictures / autographs. At tOSU, he made $2 million a year. At the Raiders, it's $6 million, and he doesn't have all the headaches.

Pleeeeezzzzeee don't throw me in that briar patch!

Late Add: For the OFC: Homer Smith also had it figured out in the late 1980s. If you don't qualify for the OFC, look him up. He had been a HC at either Army or Navy (not sure which) and Pacific. Got fired from both, and was bitter about it for a while.

But he eventually came to terms with the situation and his own limitations. Whereupon he made it his business to become the best OC and QB coach in the game. Mission accomplished.

If Homer Smith had been able to scheme with OLs 3-5 yards downfield, legal offensive interference (a/k/a "rub routes") and rules restricting DBs hitting WRs, I have no doubt that his offenses would have set records that still stand today.

I wish I had known him personally. I think we would have had a great friendship. Unfortunately, I never met him, not even just to shake his hand.

Homer Smith was a genius.

 

[bamamc1]

Homer Smith was a genius.

It's hard to believe that Coach Stallings in 1994 had Coach Smith as the OC and Coach Bill Oliver as DC. That's next level coaching right there.

 

[ga tide man #9]

Could what Pruitt was caught doing be considered in the same realm as Coach Will Wade in basketball? All of a sudden his sins of illegally paying players was forgotten

 

[RammerJammer14]

Cool, and I hope UT gets burned. But why wait until now to name names? Ignoring the fact that he knew this was happening and apparently did nothing.

 

[4Q Basket Case]

Pruitt is a well-known hothead and jerk. He doesn't listen to anybody. Saban was about the only HC who could keep him under his thumb.

I honestly think Pruitt was punished more for that general attitude than the actual offenses. IOW, if he had been contrite and apologetic, he'd still have been punished. But the show-cause wouldn't have been near as long, and he'd probably be coaching right now.

But contrition and apology don't appear to be in his make-up. So he's left throwing [stuff] at the wall, hoping something sticks.

 

[81usaf92]

Pruitt is a well-known hothead and jerk. He doesn't listen to anybody. Saban was about the only HC who could keep him under his thumb.

I honestly think Pruitt was punished more for that general attitude than the actual offenses. IOW, if he had been contrite and apologetic, he'd still have been punished. But the show-cause wouldn't have been near as long, and he'd probably be coaching right now.

But contrition and apology don't appear to be in his make-up. So he's left throwing [stuff] at the wall, hoping something sticks.

Well…. Like everywhere he has been he hasn’t exactly treated his superiors with the up most respect. Even towards Saban. Remember after he bolted to FSU he started mouthing off about how Saban was too hard on coaches to anyone that would listen in Tallahassee. Then he had a falling out with Jimbo. Then him and Richt nearly got into a fist fight. Then Tennessee basically says “hey we are going to let you resign for a less expensive settlement and we go our separate ways” and he basically dares them to fire him. There is a consistent pattern of him butting heads with his bosses and thinking he is above the system and unique. Sounds alot like another one of his mentors….Rush Propst.

The problem is that he should have learned from Sark in that being fired or forced out from a major job that you had no business having isn’t the end of the world. You take the money you can get and try to rebuild your reputation elsewhere, then people tend to forgive you due to inexperience. I mean Sark had every right to fight USC for every dollar but chose not to.

 

[dtgreg]

Well…. Like everywhere he has been he hasn’t exactly treated his superiors with the up most respect. Even towards Saban. Remember after he bolted to FSU he started mouthing off about how Saban was too hard on coaches to anyone that would listen in Tallahassee. Then he had a falling out with Jimbo. Then him and Richt nearly got into a fist fight. Then Tennessee basically says “hey we are going to let you resign for a less expensive settlement and we go our separate ways” and he basically dares them to fire him. There is a consistent pattern of him butting heads with his bosses and thinking he is above the system and unique. Sounds alot like another one of his mentors….Rush Propst.

The problem is that he should have learned from Sark in that being fired or forced out from a major job that you had no business having isn’t the end of the world. You take the money you can get and try to rebuild your reputation elsewhere, then people tend to forgive you due to inexperience. I mean Sark had every right to fight USC for every dollar but chose not to.

If you're a coach who sues his University, that will be the last college job you'll have.

 

[The Ols]

If you're a coach who sues his University, that will be the last college job you'll have.

True…but I’m guessing he could find ways to stay busy w/100 mil…

 

[bamaslammer]

He could have video of them delivering a truck load of cash and blow to UT players and at this point it wouldn't matter. It's all legal now.

 

[JohnD]

Pruitt is suing the NCAA, not UT. All UT did was fire him with cause and not pay his buyout. And they had reason to fire him, since he was guilty of some violations. So he may be planning to show 2 things: 1. that the NCAA was guilty of singling him out over minor violations and colluding with UTenn to hammer him. And 2. that what he did is insignificant in today's world and they had no justification to go nuclear on him with the lengthy show-cause. Today, what he did is perfectly legal if done through a collective, which by the way the schools are allowed to shake down boosters and ticket holders to fund. So in a way, the schools are allowed to pay players.

The NCAA did penalize UT, but it was mostly a big fine which UT easily recovered by not having to pay Pruitt's buyout. It was win-win since he was not cutting it as a head coach anyway. So it has the appearance of a plea bargain that also put a chunk of cash in the NCAA's pocket. The entirety of the school's violations made his piddling violations seem insignificant. But since UT threw him under the bus rather than fight it, the NCAA could take UT's "bribe money" AND justify their own existence by frying a standing head coach at an SEC school.

I hope he wins!

 

[81usaf92]

Even if we are trying to make the case “what he did is now legal” (which it is not), it would be like going to traffic court and demanding a refund for a ticket you paid because they just raised the speeding limit in the area you got a speeding ticket a month ago. What he is trying to do is to bully the NCAA into either dropping the show cause or to pay him for his time away from college football. Again unless he has some damning evidence of the ncaa conspiring with Tennessee I just don’t see this as anything more than a desperation shot to get back in the college game.

 

[4Q Basket Case]

I think we've got two things going on here. There's some overlap, but they're actually distinct.

Pruitt is suing the NCAA, not UTe, for destroying his career. He might or might not have a case. I tend to think not. Seems to me he's just throwing stuff to see what sticks. I think he's just hoping to get a settlement that takes the sting out of not coaching in college for a while, if ever again. We'll see what evidence he has.

But the thread started out concerning Pruitt's threat to name UTe boosters who paid players back when it was against NCAA eligibility rules to do so. The debate was whether (1) that could get UTe or the boosters individually into some NCAA trouble, or (2) it might have mattered in the past, but does no longer.

 

[TDBama78]

IMO I think his legal counsel has encouraged him to go down this path, they're both looking for a check at no cost to Pruitt.