Lucas Panzica why former Tennessee Football head coach is taking legal action against the NCAA.
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00:00Well the University of Tennessee's football program and the NCAA are once again involved
00:04in a lawsuit but this time it's a former Vols head coach pursuing the legal action.
00:13Hey Lucas Panzeca here from 104.5 The Zone and A to Z Sports. That's right former Tennessee
00:18head football coach Jeremy Pruitt is suing the NCAA from DeKalb County Alabama seeking
00:24a hundred million dollars in lost wages. The claim from Pruitt and his legal team
00:30is that the association conspired with Tennessee to make him the quote sacrificial lamb for rules
00:38violations that resulted in Jeremy Pruitt's firing from Tennessee and the six-year show
00:43cause that was given to him after the fact by the NCAA. All right there is a lot to break down here
00:49so why don't we go back in time to November of 2020. Tennessee had just wrapped up an extremely
00:55disappointing three and seven season COVID year just a 10-game SEC schedule and in November of
01:02that season the University of Tennessee opened up an internal investigation on head coach Jeremy
01:07Pruitt and his football program. That investigation ultimately involved the NCAA and resulted in the
01:14firing of Jeremy Pruitt in January 2021 with cause which meant Tennessee did not have to pay
01:20his buyout which was approximately 12 million dollars. Now I need to note this has nothing
01:26to do with the lawsuit that Tennessee had against the NCAA after the association looked into
01:32Tennessee's recruitment of Nico Yamaliava. As we know Tennessee went after the NCAA won that court
01:38case and now NIL is abound across college athletics. This is prior to that and it's a pretty
01:44big part of Jeremy Pruitt and his legal team's point. They are claiming that Jeremy Pruitt is
01:50probably going to be the last coach in college football history to get fired for cause and get
01:56a show cause because of impermissible benefits given to players which as we know is now essentially
02:01legal across college sports. Now a couple of things can be true here. Number one Tennessee
02:08went about things the proper way in 2020 recognizing some of the issues within the program
02:14and using that to their advantage to fire a coach with cause that was not winning games. This is
02:19just what happens in college athletics. We have seen it time and time again with other football
02:24programs around the country. Now it can also be true that Jeremy Pruitt could very well have a
02:30case here. He's claiming a hundred million dollars in lost wages. Well that covers his buyout as well
02:36as the money that he could have made in the extremely lucrative business of coaching college
02:41football during this six-year show cause. Another interesting note for Pruitt in this lawsuit is
02:48they claim that he found impermissible benefits that were being awarded to student-athletes
02:53at Tennessee before Pruitt was the head coach there that he revealed those to then athletic
02:58director Philip Fulmer who according to the lawsuit swept them under the rug. Everybody has
03:04a case here. As we know Tennessee came up on the better side of this situation getting five years
03:09of probation after firing Jeremy Pruitt with cause. Of course they ended up avoiding paying
03:14him that buyout which is a big part of this lawsuit. So this will get sorted out. The legal
03:20process will take place between Jeremy Pruitt and the NCAA with the University of Tennessee
03:25named in the lawsuit. It'll be very interesting to see how this all plays out but I'm sure the
03:32NCAA when it initially looked into Jeremy Pruitt's football program about five years ago did not think
03:38that five years later it would end up with multiple lawsuits from both the University of Tennessee
03:44and Jeremy Pruitt on its hands. It has not been a fun time recently
03:48for the NCAA and now Jeremy Pruitt is trying to get in on the fun.