“The failure at Tennessee was cultural.”

Shot.

Over the course of three seasons, the Tennessee football program committed 18 Level I violations — encompassing more than 200 individual infractions — most of which involved recruiting rules violations and direct payments to prospects, current student-athletes and their families, according to a decision released by a Division I Committee on Infractions panel. An additional four Level I unethical conduct violations occurred involving former university employees. The violations resulted in impermissible inducements and benefits totaling approximately $60,000. As a result, Tennessee failed to monitor its football program. Additionally, due to his personal involvement in the violations, the former football head coach violated head coach responsibility rules.

Chaser.

Current NCAA rules and penalty guidelines require a one- or two-year postseason ban for a Level I-standard case. However, in January 2022, NCAA members adopted a new constitution that states divisional regulations should ensure “to the greatest extent possible that penalties imposed for infractions do not punish programs or student-athletes not involved nor implicated in infractions.” In April 2023, the Division I Board of Directors endorsed a set of principles recommended by the Infractions Process Committee that in part emphasized incentivizing cooperation by schools by rewarding those that demonstrate exemplary cooperation and reserving postseason bans for Level I cases that lack exemplary cooperation.

Taking into consideration the board’s guidance and the school’s cooperation, the panel therefore declined to prescribe a postseason ban in this case. However, “to redress the severe and sustained misconduct” that occurred, the panel prescribes an enhanced financial penalty, with a fine of $8 million that is equivalent to the financial impact the school would have faced if it missed the postseason during the 2023 and 2024 seasons. The panel also prescribed the legislated fine of $5,000 plus 3% of the football program budget and a fine to address the ineligible competition in the 2020 TaxSlayer Gator Bowl Game.

“The panel encountered a challenging set of circumstances related to prescribing penalties in this case,” it said in its decision. “The panel urges the Infractions Process Committee and the membership to clearly define its philosophy regarding penalties — which extends beyond postseason bans — and memorialize that philosophy in an updated set of penalty guidelines.”

The committee used the Division I membership-approved infractions penalty guidelines to prescribe the following penalties in addition to the fine:

• Five years of probation.

• A reduction in football scholarships by a total of 28 during the term of probation, including at least two scholarships each year.

• Tennessee previously self-imposed and is credited with 16 scholarship reductions from the 2021-22 and 2022-23 academic years.

  • A reduction in football official visits by a total of 36 during the term of probation, including a reduction of at least four per year. Tennessee shall prohibit official visits in connection with a total of 10 regular-season home games, four of which must be against SEC opponents.

• Tennessee previously self-imposed and is credited with a reduction of seven official visits from the 2021-22 academic year, and the school can be credited for any additional reductions in visits from the 2022-23 academic year if they were imposed in connection with regular-season home games.

  • A reduction in football unofficial visits by a total of 40 weeks during the term of probation, including at least six weeks per year. Tennessee shall prohibit unofficial visits in connection with 10 regular-season home games, four of which must be against SEC opponents.

• Tennessee previously self-imposed and is credited with a six-week reduction in 2021 and two weeks during 2022, and the school can be credited for any additional reductions imposed for regular-season home games during the 2022-23 academic year.

  • A total 28-week ban on recruiting communications during the term of probation, including at least three weeks per year. This will include one week each in December and January and one week from March to June.
  • A total reduction in evaluation days by 120 during the term of probation.

• Tennessee self-imposed and is credited with a reduction of 12 days in fall 2021 and eight days in spring 2022, and the school can be credited for any additional reductions it imposed during the 2022-23 academic year.

  • A six-year show-cause order for the former head coach. Should the head coach become employed in an athletically related position at an NCAA school during that show-cause order, he shall be subject to a suspension from 100% of the first season of his employment.
  • A five-year show-cause order for the former director of recruiting.
  • A 10-year show-cause order for the former assistant director of recruiting.
  • A two-year show-cause order for former assistant coach 3. Should he be employed by an NCAA member school during that period, he shall be prohibited from participating in on- and off-campus recruiting activities.
  • A vacation of all records in which student-athletes competed while ineligible. The university must provide a written report containing the contests impacted to the NCAA media coordination and statistics staff within 14 days of the public release of the decision.
  • An indefinite disassociation of booster 2 (self-imposed by the school during the 2021 football season).
  • Additional self-imposed penalties:

• During the 2023-24 academic year, Tennessee shall forgo the purchase of advertising with all football postseason broadcasts in which it is a participant.

• Each year of the probation term, an external group shall conduct a compliance review of the football program, with an emphasis on recruiting operations.

  • Each year of the probation term, Tennessee shall host an annual, mandatory compliance seminar with an emphasis on recruiting for all football staff (coaches, part-time and volunteer staffs included). Staff from either the NCAA national office or the Southeastern Conference office will be in attendance.

Eight million dollars may sound like a steep financial penalty, but they’ll more than make that up not paying Pruitt’s buyout.  The NCAA has pretty much done UT a favor with this, all things considered.  That being said, a six-year show cause imposed on Pruitt, along with a ban on the first year of employment should any school hire Pruitt, is a pretty steep hit.  I’m not sure even Saban would swallow that one.

By the way, where’s Fulmer’s show cause?

In one corner, Rece and Herbie

Meanwhile, over at The Athletic ($$)…

These aren’t like the rankings you’ll see from the AP or coaches’ poll. These are based on my model’s team rankings.

My model takes in play-by-play data from every game but also factors in returning production, recruiting rankings and transfers. For now, it relies on projections, but as the season starts, those games will become a more important factor in the formula.

With the ratings in place, the model can simulate every game in the entire season. Those simulated seasons produce a variety of outcomes, which show how often a team win its conference or the national title, for example. That’s how you can see the projected win totals, which is an average of the wins they got throughout the simulations, and conference title chances in the team capsules below.

Before you yell at me in the comments, it’s worth noting that some of these teams are closer in how the model rates them than what their ranking may imply. For example, the difference between 20 and 40 isn’t that big, which is typical of a college football season. The same goes for 5-12 in these rankings. Georgia is head and shoulders No. 1, then Alabama, Michigan and Ohio State are in a tier of their own, then it starts to get messy.  [Emphasis added.]

I don’t think he’s referring to dandruff shampoo there.

Have some cheese with that whine

Man, the sour grapes on display here:

Big 12 deputy commissioner Tim Weiser had some some parting shots for Texas ahead of its move to the SEC next season. During an interview at Big 12 Media Days, the former Kansas State athletic director was asked about the Longhorns’ motivation for leaving the conference.

“I continue to maintain the choice Texas made wasn’t a financial one because we all know what the Texas resources are like,” Weiser told the 3MAW Podcast Wednesday. “I think their (decision) was more about affiliating with a group of schools that on a given Saturday. They would rather get beat by Alabama than Kansas State or Florida than Iowa State. That was really driving the way they looked out down the road.”

Weiser, who has served as deputy commissioner of the Big 12 since 2008, went on to speak on Oklahoma’s potential motivation for the move as well.

“I think they (Oklahoma) were more of what I would call a ‘reluctant bride,'” he said. “That kind of felt like, ‘if we don’t go, what happens to the Texas-OU football or basketball game?’ (Those are) things we know from an OU-Texas standpoint are important. I kind of felt like if I was in Oklahoma’s (position), it would’ve been hard for me not to think about the long-term.”

I’d insert the usual “stay classy, Big 12” admonishment here, but I think they’re well past that already.  And Texas and OU are still members in good standing this season!

I hope this guy has to give the conference championship trophy to either Oklahoma or Texas on the way out the door.  That would serve all parties right.

The calm assurance of the ignorant

I mentioned the other day that I expect the AJ-C’s strategy with regard to Alan Judd’s reporting will be to downplay the erroneous work on sexual assault while staying all in on the traffic violation problems, in the hope that the more solid reporting on the latter helps give the reporting on the former more credibility.

You’ll never guess who’s all in on buying that.

According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 11 players have remained on Smart’s Georgia squads during his eight seasons as Bulldogs head football coach, and that was despite women reporting “violent encounters” with those players to the police or to the university. The paper also mentioned 74 of Smart’s players have been cited for traveling 20 mph or more over the speed limit, including one of those situations leading to the death of Georgia offensive lineman Devin Willock and Chandler LeCroy, a recruiting staffer for the Bulldogs.

… Fitzgerald pleaded ignorance to everything. The same went for Smart regarding his off-the-field horrors at Georgia, and all of this is interesting since football coaches are notorious control freaks.

… Earlier this week, Smart called a miniature press conference at Georgia. He hinted to a small group of invited reporters that he really is Sergeant Schultz, but that he nevertheless is disciplining naughty players in the shadows.

Smart was surrounded by Georgia officials nodding nearby, which meant he isn’t going anywhere soon with the Bulldogs.

In contrast, after Northwestern officials suspended Fitzgerald for two weeks without pay Friday following an in-house investigation of the hazing and sexual abuse allegations, they fired him two days later when The Daily Northwestern discovered and printed more details.

If you didn’t know better, you’d say Fitzgerald was whacked since he was only the 19th highest-paid coach in the country last year after a 1-11 finish. You’d also say Kirby kept his job since he just managed another No.-1 ranked recruiting class in the nation as the highest-paid state employee in Georgia.

Terence Moore knows better.  Just ask him.

Stones, glass houses, etc.

Barrie and Finebaum then discussed the media climate and the recent investigations from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, as fans have taken up the issue to defend their favorite program. Finebaum openly wondered how much of the off-the-field issues go on elsewhere, and how much is covered by the respective media for a program. — Saturday Down South, 7/11/23

A word to the wise for those taking Alan Judd’s reporting about the Georgia program turning a blind eye repeatedly to sexual assault perpetrated by its players at face value — Finebaum’s skepticism is likely justified, if for no other reason than this:

At many of the nation’s top sports colleges, vetting athletes for past sexual misconduct and violent acts under a new NCAA policy boils down to one step: asking them.

The policy was the national college sports organization’s answer to a series of scandals in which coaches recruited athletes with histories of violence against women, some of whom were later accused of reoffending. Starting with the 2022-23 school year, the rule was intended to keep campuses safer.

But if an athlete answers “no” to a list of questions about criminal convictions and school disciplinary action, officials at many multi-sport powerhouses – the University of Alabama, Louisiana State University, Ohio State University and more – generally take their word for it.

“They absolutely don’t want to know,” said Brenda Tracy, a gang-rape survivor whose nonprofit, Set The Expectation, works to reduce sexual violence in sports by educating athletes and coaches. “It’s ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell.’”

You could say much the same for opposing fan bases (and the media, in some cases).

That’s some honor system you got there, college football.