ANNOUNCEMENT: Bru McCoy, Announce Resignation And Departure From Tennessee Volunteers Today….
Tennessee offensive lineman Jackson Lampley has joined athletic director Danny White and Spyre Sports co-founder James Clawson as defendants in a lawsuit against the NCAA.
The state of Tennessee and the Commonwealth of Virginia are suing after news broke that the NCAA would investigate the University of Tennessee for alleged improper recruiting violations.
Lampley submitted a six-page testimony outlining the current landscape of college football and gave a player’s perspective on NIL.
White took to his X account on Thursday to issue a statement of his own, where he said that “100% of major programs” are doing exactly what they are.
confirmed to ESPN on Tuesday.
The investigation puts the Volunteers in the crosshairs for potential sanctions as repeat violators. Tennessee is fresh off an NCAA ruling in summer 2023 in which it was charged with 18 Level 1 violations and fined a record $8 million.
The scope and breadth of the current allegations, according to sources, include the potential for the enforcement staff to charge multiple Level 1 and Level 2 violations.
The case revolves around activity related to the Spyre Sports Group, which is Tennessee’s primary NIL collective, sources told ESPN.
The case is fundamentally tied to football, but the Spyre Sports Group sponsors athletes in other sports.
The NCAA’s investigation into Tennessee was first reported by Sports Illustrated.
Tennessee has pushed back against the allegations.
A document obtained by ESPN shows Tennessee chancellor Donde Plowman told NCAA president Charlie Baker the allegations are “factually untrue and procedurally flawed.”
In the letter, obtained by ESPN through an open records request, Plowman called the NCAA rules regarding NIL “intellectually dishonest” in how they are written.
This tension comes at a time when the NCAA appears to be focusing on rules tied to name, image and likeness. Recent cases that emerged at both Florida and Florida State were tied to NIL allegations.
Attorney Tom Mars on Tuesday released a statement on behalf of Spyre Sports Group, saying that an agreement with quarterback Nico Iamaleava “was fully consistent with then existing NCAA NIL ‘guidelines’ and had nothing to do with recruiting Nico to the University of Tennessee or any other school.”
Mars said the agreement with Iamaleava involved a “limited assignment of his NIL rights, no matter which school he chose to attend” and that similar “representation agreements” have become “increasingly common” throughout the college landscape.
Tennessee declined comment when reached by ESPN.
The school has yet to receive a formal notice of allegations from the NCAA, sources said.
“I’d say there’s a real uptick in NIL cases, portal issues,” a source familiar with the NCAA space told ESPN.
“They are the two main areas of enforcement staff inquiry. And those go hand-in-hand a lot of times.
The NIL money is being used as transfer bait.”
