Jeremy Pruitt out as head coach in Tennessee.
Additionally, Phil Fulmer is “retiring” as athletic director. The Tennessean claims his retirement is unrelated to Pruitt’s firing, but I’m skeptical.
Pruitt’s record was 16-19 in three seasons, and 3-7 this year. The team lost seven of their last eight games by double-digit margins.
But the major issue is that Pruitt is entangled in a messy recruiting scandal.
Pruitt’s exit comes on the heels of Tennessee launching an in-house investigation dating back to November into alleged recruiting improprieties that sources told ESPN centered in part on extra benefits provided to football recruits on unofficial visits. Pruitt, with his attorneys present, met with investigators for several hours Thursday. That meeting was monitored by NCAA officials via Zoom. At least one other assistant, inside linebackers coach Brian Niedermeyer, had a lengthy meeting with investigators Wednesday, also with his attorneys present and NCAA officials monitoring virtually.
Edited to add: Mike the Musicologist sent over a report that outside linebackers coach Shelton Felton and inside linebackers coach Brian Niedermeyer have also been fired. An updated report from ESPN also indicates that unnamed others have been let go as well. And all of these firings (including Pruitt’s) are being reported as “for cause”, which means no contract buyout.
This entry was posted on Monday, January 18th, 2021 at 12:15 pm and is filed under Firings, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.