Can things get any worse for Tennessee? | Yahoo Sports College Podcast
Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel and Pete Thamel, and Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde discuss the disaster unfolding at Tennessee after the school parted ways with AD Phillip Fulmer and head coach Jeremy Pruitt amid NCAA violations.
Video Transcript
[VARIOUS SPORTS SOUNDS]
DAN WETZEL: Coach Pruitt has lawyered up, as we'd expect. And there will be-- lawyers will be involved. He's looking for his money. He's not gonna fall for this, we just decided to get clean and self-investigate and turn ourselves in bit. Is there any chance of this backfiring on Tennessee and that this is actually going to be a significant enough penalty that it could really screw him?
Because they don't have an AD. They don't have a coach. Pete, you don't think that they can hire Hugh Freeze. Because how the heck do you have a press conference where you fire a coach for NCAA violations and then hire a guy who, last time he was in the SEC, had NCAA violations.
I would say that is accurate, except how the heck do you praise a guy's recruiting success where you just fired him for illegally recruiting?
PAT FORDE: [LAUGHING]
DAN WETZEL: How does Phil Fulmer give himself a retention bonus when no one was trying to hire him? I don't know. It's Tennessee. Why would you describe your girlfriend as half bear, half minx? I don't--
PAT FORDE: [LAUGHING]
DAN WETZEL: The hell's going on over there?
PETE THAMEL: [LAUGHING]
DAN WETZEL: I don't understand any of it, and I've been to Knoxville, and I love the place. It's a great place.
PETE THAMEL: Great place.
DAN WETZEL: Great place.
PAT FORDE: It is.
DAN WETZEL: It really deserves a good team. But could this all backfire? Are we in worse shape than ever now? Are they gonna dream back to the years when the gap was closing?
PAT FORDE: I mean, it's obviously a bad situation of their own making. And I guess it's gonna get worse before it gets better. I think it can eventually get better because it can be an attractive job in a fantastic place. I mean, a really cool city and an unbelievable fan base. When they get it going, it's a great place to go. But it's gonna be bad.
Like, the NCAA violations, according to the chancellor, level one, level two. They fired nine people. If there's nine people involved, there's a lot of violations. If there's aggravating circumstances, you're looking at multiple year postseason ban. If it's standard violations, you're probably looking at least a one year postseason ban.
So, yes, is their desire to save-- what is it, $12 and 1/2 million, Pete, in buyout? I'm not sure--
PETE THAMEL: I think it's $12.8.
PAT FORDE: --exactly what the number is.
PETE THAMEL: Yeah.
PAT FORDE: OK. Could trying to save that cost them more? I mean, we'll see. Can Jeremy Pruitt come back and get you legally in the end? There's a lot of risk in the air in Rocky Top, for sure.
PETE THAMEL: Like, Tennessee over the years-- let's just say it hasn't been like-- it hasn't just been Vanderbilt or Stanford, all right?
PAT FORDE: Donnie Tyndall.
PETE THAMEL: Oh. Yeah.
PAT FORDE: Lane Kiffin.
PETE THAMEL: I sat in Phillip Fulmer's office back when I worked the New York Times-- 2004 or five-- because they were using an assistant named Trooper Taylor to recruit guys at a fake prep school called University High in South Florida. Like, literally sat in his office. He was smoking one those little, like, cigars.
And I walked out there, I was like, he was dumb enough to not realize how bad this was gonna be for Tennessee. It was on the front page of the Sunday New York Times. Like, Phillip Fulmer, God bless him.
Like, the fact that they really needed to have the iconography, for lack of a better word, of still battling to Phil Fulmer after he completely took the remnants of their football program and dumped it in a sewer-- all right? Completely submerged in a sewer, and it's, like, choking and gasping for air.
And they still felt the need to trot him out there, pat him on the back, and pay him-- they owe him three full years. They're not only gonna pay him for completely failing the university, but they're putting up at a podium and thanking him for the crappy job that he did hiring a completely incompetent coach. It's unbelievable.
[MARCHING BAND DRUMS]
[CROWD CHEERING]
