College Football

Tennessee chancellor says NCAA allegations of NIL rules violations are untrue and flawed

Updated Jan. 30, 2024 4:33 p.m. ET

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Chancellor Donde Plowman told the NCAA president that allegations Tennessee violated rules overseeing name, image and likeness are "factually untrue and procedurally flawed," according to a letter released Tuesday by the university.

Plowman wrote Monday in a letter to Charlie Baker shortly after Tennessee officials met with NCAA representatives to discuss the allegations that it was "intellectually dishonest" considering that leaders of collegiate sports owe it to students and their families to act in their best interest with clear rules.

"Instead, 2 1/2 years of vague and contradictory NCAA memos, emails and ‘guidance’ about name, image and likeness (NIL) has created extraordinary chaos that student-athletes and institutions are struggling to navigate," Plowman wrote in the letter. "In short, the NCAA is failing."

Plowman wrote that she appreciated NCAA staff listening to Tennessee's arguments and agreeing to evaluate them. But she also noted it's "intellectually dishonest" for NCAA enforcement staff to pursue infractions cases as if students have no NIL rights or institutions "willfully violating" a "clear and unchanging set of rules.'

The NCAA's policy is to refrain from commenting publicly about current, pending or potential investigations, with rare exceptions.

The NIL collective that supports Tennessee athletes, Spyre Sports Group, was among the first and most well organized to emerge around the country after the NCAA lifted its ban on athletes making money off their fame.

Plowman made it clear she wanted to talk to Baker in person, especially since the NCAA president recently testified before Congress about wanting to meet with as many members and athletes as possible about the issues surrounding college sports. She wrote the letter after her December request for Baker to meet with her and Tennessee athletic director Danny White was denied.

She said Tennessee worked well with the NCAA in a recent investigation, cooperation cited by the Division I Committee on Infractions as the standard for others to follow. Plowman wrote: "When we are wrong at the University of Tennessee, we admit it.'

The NCAA fined Tennessee more than $8 million last July to cap an investigation started by the university in November 2020. The NCAA needed more than 80 pages in its report outlining more than 200 infractions during the three-year tenure of former football coach Jeremy Pruitt.

Tennessee was found guilty of committing 18 Level I violations — the most severe. Most involved recruiting infractions and direct payments to athletes and their families with benefits totaling approximately $60,000.

The head of the panel ruling on the investigation called the violations "egregious and expansive" with Tennessee failing to monitor its football program.

Only Tennessee's early cooperation with the NCAA kept the program from a postseason ban. Four former staffers were given show-cause orders, including one spanning six years for Pruitt, who was fired in January 2021.

"It is inconceivable that our institution’s leadership would be cited as an example of exemplary leadership in July 2023, then as a cautionary example of a lack of institutional control only six months later," Plowman wrote in the letter obtained by The Associated Press.

The NCAA found most of the violations were related to a paid unofficial visit scheme used consistently by the football program over two years and involving at least a dozen members of the football staff.

Violations included at least 110 impermissible hotel room nights, 180 impermissible meals, 72 instances of providing impermissible entertainment or other benefits, 41 impermissible recruiting contacts, 37 instances of providing impermissible game day parking, and 14 times in which gear was impermissibly provided to prospects, according to the report.

Tennessee just wrapped up a third season with coach Josh Heupel going 9-4. His prized recruit, Nico Iamaleava from California, wrapped up his first season making his first career start in a 35-0 rout of Iowa in the Citrus Bowl on New Year's Day.

Iamaleava was the No. 2 recruit nationally in the 2023 class by 247Sports.com when he committed to Tennessee.

Reporting by The Associated Press.

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