Jeremy Pruitt is taking the NCAA to court over his departure from Tennessee, and is asking for some major compensation.
The former Tennessee football coach is suing the NCAA for $100 million in lost wages, according to documents obtained by Yahoo Sports.
What’s more, Pruitt is claiming that the NCAA “conspired with Tennessee” to make him a “sacrificial lamb” over the school’s rules violations.
In the lawsuit, Pruitt says he learned after he was fired from Tennessee “that one or more individuals in the UT Athletics Department or boosters had systematically engaged in making payments to players at a time when NCAA rules did not allow such payments.”
He added: “It is believed persons within the UT Athletics Department solicited and received money from high profile businessmen and alumni to fund the clandestine payments to the players. Jeremy was unaware of this activity during his tenure at UT…
And, “… It is believed UT intentionally hid the scheme from Jeremy based on Jeremy’s willingness to report violations – like he did to [then-AD Phillip Fulmer] within his first week of coaching at UT.”
Pruitt has not coached football since leaving Tennessee and contends that he has lost $100 million in potential future wages.
The two-year extension Pruitt signed in 2020 paid him more than $4 million every season and his buyout was more than $12 million when he was fired.
Pruitt was fired by Tennessee in 2021 and later given a six year show-cause order for what the NCAA Committee on Infractions called “aggravated” violations during his time as Vols coach.
He and other Tennessee football staff members were charged with 18 NCAA violations that covered more than 200 individual infractions involving 29 recruits and their families in addition to 10 active players from 2018 to 2020.
Among the charges brought against Pruitt were impermissible cash and benefits totaling more than $60,000 and for recruiting during the NCAA-ordered dead period during the Covid pandemic.
Pruitt claims that Tennessee was illegally paying football players before he arrived as head coach, and that he reported multiple violations in 2017 to Fulmer.
Fulmer told Pruitt that “he would handle it,” according to the complaint.
Pruitt said the NCAA applied rules against him in 2023 that “had been essentially abolished in 2021 by the United States Supreme Court ruling.”
Tennessee itself was placed on a five-year probation, fined $8 million, and was docked 28 football scholarships over the five-year period, but did not receive a postseason ban.