The Tennessee Volunteers are facing another NCAA investigation of potential rules violations, according to Pat Forde of SI.
Citing sources, Forde reports the violations are “major” in nature and involve multiple sports over NIL benefits for athletes.
The investigation, per The New York Times, is focused on the use of a private jet by a donor collective to fly a high-profile recruit — now the starting quarterback Nico Iamaleava — to campus while the university was recruiting him.
The Volunteers were penalized last summer for more than 200 rules infractions in the football program in which the NCAA Committee on Infractions said the case was “one of the worst the COI has seen.”
Tennessee acknowledged the investigation to “SI” but said it has not received a notice of allegations.
“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 told SI.
Forde reports, citing sources, Tennessee doesn’t believe it has committed any violations.
In July, former Tennessee coach Jeremy Pruitt received a six-year show cause order for what the NCAA Committee on Infractions termed “aggravated” violations during his tenure in Knoxville.
Pruitt and several members of his Volunteers staff were charged with 18 NCAA violations that encompassed more than 200 individual infractions involving 29 recruits and their families and 10 active players that occurred from 2018-20.
Among the charges were impermissible cash and benefits totaling more than $60,000, as well as recruiting during the NCAA-mandated COVID-19 dead period.
