18 violations, almost $60K in illegal benefits by Tennessee football under

The NCAA has charged Tennessee’s football program with 18 Level I alleged rules violations, the most severe under its rules, for impermissible recruiting benefits totaling about $60,000 that were paid to prospects and players under former coach Jeremy Pruitt.

Among other allegations, Pruitt is accused of providing about $9,000 to the mothers of two prospects. His wife, Casey, is accused of making 25 cash payments totaling about $12,500 to help a prospect’s mother make her car payment.

Tennessee, which fired Pruitt in January 2021 after its internal investigation into the allegations, is not charged with lack of institutional control because of its cooperation with NCAA investigators and its integrity in handling the misconduct, the NCAA said in a notice of allegations that was sent to the university on Friday.

“In every step of this process, we took quick and decisive actions that exemplified the longstanding values of the NCAA reiterated in the membership’s new constitution,” Tennessee chancellor Donde Plowman said in a statement. “The university hired outside counsel to fully investigate allegations about the football program, acted promptly to terminate the employment of football coaches and staff members, and shared our conclusions with the NCAA enforcement staff.”

The NCAA did charge the Volunteers with failure to “adequately monitor its football program’s arrangement of unofficial visits and to ensure compliance with NCAA recruiting legislation.”

The NCAA charged Pruitt with failing to promote an atmosphere of compliance and failure to monitor his staff. Pruitt is also charged with violating NCAA principles of ethical conduct when “he knowingly arranged, offered and provided prospective and enrolled student-athletes and their family members or individuals associated with prospective student-athletes with improper inducements and extra benefits in the form of impermissible entertainment and cash payments to numerous individuals, the notice said.

“Pruitt did not demonstrate that he monitored his staff or promoted an atmosphere of compliance within the football program when at least a dozen of his staff members were involved in more than 200 individual violations of NCAA legislation over a two-year time period as detailed in Allegation Nos. 1 through 9,” the notice of allegations said. “As evidenced by the number of staff members involved and the nature of the violations, J. Pruitt failed to demonstrate that compliance was a shared responsibility or establish clear expectations that all coaches and staff members comply with NCAA rules and failed to establish a program that includes immediate reporting of actual and potential issues to the compliance staff.”

The NCAA accused Pruitt and his staff of hosting six recruits and their families during a yearlong dead period, in which programs weren’t allowed to have on-campus recruiting activity because of the…