Sources: Tennessee Under Potential NCAA Investigation for NIL Violations in Multiple Sports

The Volunteers were penalized last summer for infractions within the football program and could face significant consequences for another major probe.

The University of Tennessee is immersed in another NCAA investigation of potential rules violations that is “major” in nature, sources tell Sports Illustrated. The case involves multiple sports and includes scrutiny of name, image and likeness (NIL) benefits for athletes.

The Volunteers were penalized last summer for more than 200 rules infractions in the football program. The NCAA Committee on Infractions declared that the case was “one of the worst the COI has seen,” with 18 Level I violations that included around $60,000 in impermissible inducements and benefits for recruits. Now the school is back in the NCAA’s crosshairs, a recurrence that could have significant consequences.

Details are scarce on what Tennessee is potentially facing in the latest case, including the number of involved sports. The school acknowledged the investigation to SI, but declined further comment, other than to say it has not received a notice of allegations from NCAA Enforcement.

According to a New York Times report Tuesday, one element of the NCAA’s investigation is a collective using a private jet to fly heralded five-star quarterback recruit Nico Iamaleava to campus during his recruitment. Having a booster group pay for the trip is a violation of NCAA rules.

The NCAA also declined comment in a statement to SI. “With rare exceptions, the NCAA does not comment on current, pending or potential investigations due to confidentiality rules put in place by member schools,” associate director of communications Meghan Durham Wright said.

A source familiar with the inquiry tells SI that Tennessee does not believe it has committed any violations in the NIL realm. The source cited NCAA guidance in that evolving area as “vague and contradictory.”

Tennessee administrators met with NCAA Enforcement representatives Monday, according to a letter obtained by SI from UT chancellor Donde Plowman to NCAA president Charlie Baker. Plowman decried the actions of enforcement staff members, noting, “Regrettably, in this chaotic environment, the NCAA enforcement staff is trying to retroactively apply unclear guidance to punish and make an example of our institution and others ...” Plowman asserts the NCAA’s procedure is flawed and that “some of the allegations are factually untrue.”

Although a formal notice of allegations has not been presented to Tennessee, Plowman indicates the serious nature of potential charges in her letter: “In fact, just last year, the Division I Committee on Infractions as well as the NCAA enforcement staff cited exemplary cooperation by the University of Tennessee and said we set the standard other schools should follow. It is inconceivable that our institution’s leadership would be cited as an example of exemplary leadership in July 2023, then as a cautionary example of a lack of institutional control only six months later.” Lack of institutional control is arguably the most serious institutional charge the NCAA can levy against a school and can yield major sanctions.

The Volunteers have one of the most prominent NIL collective programs in the country, the Volunteer Club, which is operated by Knoxville-based Spyre Sports Group. The Volunteer Club said it had more than 4,000 members as of early December, and the Knoxville News-Sentinel reported in September that Spyre Sports had struck deals with Tennessee athletes in 11 sports. It’s unclear whether any of those agreements are targets of the NCAA inquiry.

The most noteworthy NIL deal at Tennessee is believed to be with Iamaleava, a five-star Class of 2023 recruit from California. The Athletic reported in 2022 that a five-star high school junior had agreed to a contract that could pay him up to $8 million, but it did not name the recruit or the school he would attend. Subsequent reports speculated Iamaleava was that player; neither he nor his family have confirmed or denied he was the player mentioned in The Athletic story. In March 2023, Iamaleava was a publicized pitch man for Force Factor, a supplement company.

Iamaleava is regarded as the program’s rising star for 2024 :: Saul Young/News Sentinel/USA TODAY NETWORK

Iamaleava was Tennessee’s backup quarterback in 2023, appearing in five games and accounting for 385 total yards and five touchdowns. He started for the Volunteers in their Cheez-It Citrus Bowl victory over Iowa, accounting for four touchdowns, and is regarded as the program’s rising star for 2024.

Despite the egregious nature of the football violations in the previous case, the Committee on Infractions chose not to hit Tennessee with a postseason ban for the 2023 season, citing a relatively recent aversion within the NCAA membership to penalizing athletes who were not involved or implicated in the infractions. The committee said it was following membership guidance and “reserving postseason bans for Level I cases that lack exemplary cooperation” by the school under investigation. Tennessee was given credit for exemplary cooperation in that case, having fired then-coach Jeremy Pruitt and performed an extensive in-house investigation.

Many believed that signaled the end of the NCAA doling out postseason bans, which had been considered the harshest penalties at the NCAA’s disposal. But could that change in this instance, in what could be a blatant “repeat violator” case? That’s the NCAA’s nomenclature for a school that commits a Level I or II violation within five years of starting a penalty from a previous violation—and this would be two cases in a much shorter period of time.

Instead of a postseason ban last year, the NCAA administered other sanctions to Tennessee. The school was fined more than $8 million—the equivalent of two years of bowl revenue—had a long list of recruiting restrictions and vacated 11 victories in 2019 and ‘20. Pruitt was given a six-year show-cause penalty that should make him all but impossible to hire at the NCAA level during that time period.

After receiving criticism for being unable to make the rules stick in the NIL/transfer portal era, this is at least the second significant case NCAA Enforcement has advanced to the point of potential sanctions. Earlier in January, the NCAA and Florida State reached a negotiated resolution on an infractions case that resulted in a three-game suspension for a Seminoles assistant coach and a three-year disassociation from the FSU athletic program for a booster connected to the Rising Spear collective.