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Franz Beard
3 hours ago
The Tennessee Case Could Define How Florida Deals With the NCAA
A few thoughts to jump start your Wednesday morning:
The Tennessee Vols have essentially drawn a line in the sand and told the NCAA they’re ready to go scorched earth to fight an NCAA investigation over allegations of NIL wrongdoing. The news of the investigation sent a wave of giggles through the Gator Nation, but what happens with the Vols could go a long way toward determining how Florida chooses to deal with the NCAA.
Tennessee is already on NCAA probation from the more than 200 recruiting violations that cost former head football coach Jeremy Pruitt his job, so Level I violations could result in a postseason ban and debilitating scholarship reductions. Per the New York Times and ESPN, the NIL violations center around quarterback Nico Iamaleava, who signed a well-documented $8 million agreement with the Spyre Collective although Sports Illustrated reports that there are NIL violations in other sports. The Knoxville News-Sentinel has previously reported that Spyre has NIL deals with UT athletes in 11 sports.
The New York Times reported that one of the more serious allegations with Tennessee has to do with the Spyre Collective flying Iamaleava in a private jet from his home in California to Knoxville during his recruitment. Boosters paying for a recruiting trip is a violation of NCAA rules.
Rather than handle the allegations privately and quietly, Tennessee has chosen to take on the NCAA publicly.
In a letter to NCAA president Charlie Baker, University of Tennessee president Donde Plowman wrote, "The NCAA's allegations are factually untrue and procedurally flawed. Moreover, it is intellectually dishonest for the NCAA enforcement staff to pursue infractions cases as if student-athletes have no NIL rights and as if institutions all have been functioning post-Alston with a clear and unchanging set of rules and willfully violating them."
Plowman makes a legitimate point in bringing up Alston vs. the NCAA, a case before the United States Supreme Court that the NCAA lost in a unanimous ruling, 9-0. The ruling opened the door for NCAA student-athletes to cash in on their name, image and likeness. Immediately after the ruling, the NCAA issued a rather vague set of rules that are essentially up for interpretation.
The Alston case made it possible for Iamaleava to get the $8 million deal with the Spyre Collective. It also opened the door for the Gator Collective to get into a bidding war with Miami over quarterback Jaden Rashada. Rashada agreed to a deal worth a reported $13.8 million with the Gator Collective headed by Eddie Rojas and allegedly negotiated by Hugh Hathcock. When the Gator Collective couldn’t come up with the $13.8 million there was an attempt to negotiate a new deal, but when that, too, fell through Rashada got his release from a signed Florida LOI. Subsequently, he signed with Arizona State.
A little more than a week ago, it was reported by Edgar Thompson of the Orlando Sentinel that Florida had been under NCAA investigation since June 2023 regarding the attempted deal with Rashada. Even though no money changed hands, the NCAA alleges that the signed contract represents a violation of its rules.
The Florida investigation was on the heels of an announced NCAA probation for Florida State over a $15,000 NIL payment that involved improper transportation of a recruit from the transfer portal. Offensive coordinator Alex Atkins received a 3-game suspension and a 2-year show cause over his involvement.
FSU was willing to accept the NCAA punishment. Florida has only said it is cooperating with NCAA investigators but hasn’t released any details of a planned defense.
The allegations against Tennessee include the dreaded words “lack of institutional control.” Based on UT president Donde Plowman’s letter to Charlie Baker, it appears the Vols are prepared to do a modern day replica of Sherman’s march to the sea, burning everything in their path as their defense. At the heart of the Tennessee defense will be the NCAA’s own lack of clearcut rules and guidance.
Plowman wrote, “Student-athletes, prospective student-athletes, parents, coaches, NCAA member institutions, collectives and anyone working in college athletics today need to have clear rules to follow. As you acknowledged in the recent congressional hearing, the NIL guidance from the NCAA to student-athletes and institutions has been ‘inconsistent and unclear, and the ambiguity has filled schools, student-athletes and collectives with uncertainty about how to follow the rules.'”
Furthermore, Plowman questioned how, in light of the Alston decision by the Supreme Court, that the NCAA can impose rules that would restrict a student-athlete from doing business with a private organization.
She wrote, “It is intellectually dishonest for the NCAA staff to issue guidelines that say a third-party collective/business may meet with prospective student-athletes, discuss NIL, even enter into a contract with prospective student-athletes, but at the same time say that the collective may not engage in conversations that would be of a recruiting nature. Any discussion about NIL might factor into a prospective student-athlete’s decision to attend an institution. We emphasized to the NCAA enforcement staff that the actions they are considering are contradictory with and will undermine the vision and ‘new day’ that you yourself have laid out for NIL.”
Tennessee has hired high profile attorney Tom Mars to conduct its defense. Mars typically uses a take no prisoners approach when taking on the NCAA and this promises to be no different. Major violations from NIL tacked on to the current probation from football recruiting would indeed constitute a lack of institutional control and could result in significantly worse penalties.
The Tennessee allegations on top of Florida State’s capitulation and the announcement that Florida is being investigated are on top of reports that numerous schools are under investigation for NIL violations. It is just further confirmation that the NCAA is trying to turn back the clock to a time when its enforcement division was pee in the pants feared by member institutions.
Strongarming its members used to work quite nicely for the NCAA, but fighting back worked well for North Carolina basketball, caught with its pants down after 18 years of academic fraud, and with Kansas, which went to the mat in defense of basketball coach Bill Self. Michigan appears to be mounting a similar defense in the post-Jim Harbaugh era.
We can see from Donde Plowman’s letter to NCAA president Charlie Baker that Tennessee will also use the scorched earth approach. How will Florida president Ben Sasse and athletic director Scott Stricklin take on the NCAA? Will they choose to duke it out bare knuckles with the NCAA or take a more passive approach for a negotiated settlement?
Compared to Florida State and Tennessee where money actually changed hands, it would seem Florida would be due for nothing more than a slap on the wrist since Rashada signed a private contract with a private group and no money was exchanged. However, past dealings should tell us never, under any circumstance, should the NCAA and its enforcement people be trusted. A show of force is always the best way to deal with the NCAA. If the NCAA doesn’t back down, take it to the courts where the NCAA has an abysmal record.
ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: Back in the days when Walter Byers ran the NCAA, only the IRS was more feared than the enforcement division and its chief pit bull David Berst. Just ask the University of Florida. When the Gators went to the NCAA’s version of the kangaroo court in September of 1984, Berst and the NCAA threatened the University of Florida with a fate worse than death if it didn’t fire Charley Pell. Florida didn’t fight back. Rather than stand by its man, Pell was fired and the stigma of the Florida case with the NCAA was like a scarlett letter he wore the rest of his life. Pell was an outstanding football coach and a pied piper of a recruiter but he never coached again. He was on the verge of the Louisville job but fear of NCAA reprisal ended that opportunity.
After Florida, Charley Pell never coached college football again. In retrospect, Florida should have done a Tammy Wynette defense to stand by its man but the powers that be caved to Berst and the threats. Anyone who has gone through Florida’s 1983-85 rosters can see what might have been. That was an NFL team Charley Pell recruited.
Here were are 40 years later and finally, there is a real chance the NCAA will roll over and die. It’s about time.
The NCAA has tried to portray itself as this paragon of virtue, fighting for the rights of student-athletes everywhere. Oh, it has done some good over the years and it does a dandy job of organizing championship tournaments, but there is this dirty little secret of selective enforcement that can no longer be hidden. For example, how is it that the NCAA stuck it to Florida in 1984, yet at the same time overlooked the sins of Vince Dooley at Georgia. The 109 violations the NCAA charged Florida with probably didn’t add up collectively to what Dooley and Georgia paid for Herschel Walker. If you have time on your hands, look up the case of Jan Kemp and how Dooley and Georgia tried to destroy her for exposing academic fraud. Do a search of Sam Gilbert and how he paid off UCLA basketball players during that rather remarkable run of 10 NCAA championships between 1963-76.
There is a reason the late, great Jerry Tarkanian once quipped that he liked transfers from other Division I schools “because they already had their cars paid for.” It’s called selective enforcement. The NCAA wanted Tark, but Tark eventually beat the NCAA in court.
Brick by brick the NCAA wall has been falling down in recent years as one school after another elected to challenge rather than capitulate. North Carolina and Kansas basketball fought and won. While some may think Jim Harbaugh was driven from Michigan to the Los Angeles Chargers by the threat of two NCAA investigations, those who know Harbaugh best say he was leaving for the NFL anyway. Michigan, by the way, is going to fight back.
Michigan will win just as Tennessee will win when it fights back over the allegations regarding Nico Iamaleava. Was Nico bought and paid for? You betcha. Did the NCAA, in its infinite wisdom, fail to come up with adequate by-laws to deal with NIL? Once more, you betcha.
College sports need rules and regulations. There should be adequate and fair punishment for schools that break the rules. The NCAA’s problem is it has outlived its usefulness and its ability to make and enforce the rules.
This latest attempt by the NCAA to bring back the scary days of yesteryear needs to backfire. Perhaps by fighting back, Tennessee will bring down the NCAA. Perhaps that will set in motion a new organization, this one run by business people and people who know sports, not by college presidents and bureaucrats.
Franz Beard
3 hours ago
The Tennessee Case Could Define How Florida Deals With the NCAA
A few thoughts to jump start your Wednesday morning:
The Tennessee Vols have essentially drawn a line in the sand and told the NCAA they’re ready to go scorched earth to fight an NCAA investigation over allegations of NIL wrongdoing. The news of the investigation sent a wave of giggles through the Gator Nation, but what happens with the Vols could go a long way toward determining how Florida chooses to deal with the NCAA.
Tennessee is already on NCAA probation from the more than 200 recruiting violations that cost former head football coach Jeremy Pruitt his job, so Level I violations could result in a postseason ban and debilitating scholarship reductions. Per the New York Times and ESPN, the NIL violations center around quarterback Nico Iamaleava, who signed a well-documented $8 million agreement with the Spyre Collective although Sports Illustrated reports that there are NIL violations in other sports. The Knoxville News-Sentinel has previously reported that Spyre has NIL deals with UT athletes in 11 sports.
The New York Times reported that one of the more serious allegations with Tennessee has to do with the Spyre Collective flying Iamaleava in a private jet from his home in California to Knoxville during his recruitment. Boosters paying for a recruiting trip is a violation of NCAA rules.
Rather than handle the allegations privately and quietly, Tennessee has chosen to take on the NCAA publicly.
In a letter to NCAA president Charlie Baker, University of Tennessee president Donde Plowman wrote, "The NCAA's allegations are factually untrue and procedurally flawed. Moreover, it is intellectually dishonest for the NCAA enforcement staff to pursue infractions cases as if student-athletes have no NIL rights and as if institutions all have been functioning post-Alston with a clear and unchanging set of rules and willfully violating them."
Plowman makes a legitimate point in bringing up Alston vs. the NCAA, a case before the United States Supreme Court that the NCAA lost in a unanimous ruling, 9-0. The ruling opened the door for NCAA student-athletes to cash in on their name, image and likeness. Immediately after the ruling, the NCAA issued a rather vague set of rules that are essentially up for interpretation.
The Alston case made it possible for Iamaleava to get the $8 million deal with the Spyre Collective. It also opened the door for the Gator Collective to get into a bidding war with Miami over quarterback Jaden Rashada. Rashada agreed to a deal worth a reported $13.8 million with the Gator Collective headed by Eddie Rojas and allegedly negotiated by Hugh Hathcock. When the Gator Collective couldn’t come up with the $13.8 million there was an attempt to negotiate a new deal, but when that, too, fell through Rashada got his release from a signed Florida LOI. Subsequently, he signed with Arizona State.
A little more than a week ago, it was reported by Edgar Thompson of the Orlando Sentinel that Florida had been under NCAA investigation since June 2023 regarding the attempted deal with Rashada. Even though no money changed hands, the NCAA alleges that the signed contract represents a violation of its rules.
The Florida investigation was on the heels of an announced NCAA probation for Florida State over a $15,000 NIL payment that involved improper transportation of a recruit from the transfer portal. Offensive coordinator Alex Atkins received a 3-game suspension and a 2-year show cause over his involvement.
FSU was willing to accept the NCAA punishment. Florida has only said it is cooperating with NCAA investigators but hasn’t released any details of a planned defense.
The allegations against Tennessee include the dreaded words “lack of institutional control.” Based on UT president Donde Plowman’s letter to Charlie Baker, it appears the Vols are prepared to do a modern day replica of Sherman’s march to the sea, burning everything in their path as their defense. At the heart of the Tennessee defense will be the NCAA’s own lack of clearcut rules and guidance.
Plowman wrote, “Student-athletes, prospective student-athletes, parents, coaches, NCAA member institutions, collectives and anyone working in college athletics today need to have clear rules to follow. As you acknowledged in the recent congressional hearing, the NIL guidance from the NCAA to student-athletes and institutions has been ‘inconsistent and unclear, and the ambiguity has filled schools, student-athletes and collectives with uncertainty about how to follow the rules.'”
Furthermore, Plowman questioned how, in light of the Alston decision by the Supreme Court, that the NCAA can impose rules that would restrict a student-athlete from doing business with a private organization.
She wrote, “It is intellectually dishonest for the NCAA staff to issue guidelines that say a third-party collective/business may meet with prospective student-athletes, discuss NIL, even enter into a contract with prospective student-athletes, but at the same time say that the collective may not engage in conversations that would be of a recruiting nature. Any discussion about NIL might factor into a prospective student-athlete’s decision to attend an institution. We emphasized to the NCAA enforcement staff that the actions they are considering are contradictory with and will undermine the vision and ‘new day’ that you yourself have laid out for NIL.”
Tennessee has hired high profile attorney Tom Mars to conduct its defense. Mars typically uses a take no prisoners approach when taking on the NCAA and this promises to be no different. Major violations from NIL tacked on to the current probation from football recruiting would indeed constitute a lack of institutional control and could result in significantly worse penalties.
The Tennessee allegations on top of Florida State’s capitulation and the announcement that Florida is being investigated are on top of reports that numerous schools are under investigation for NIL violations. It is just further confirmation that the NCAA is trying to turn back the clock to a time when its enforcement division was pee in the pants feared by member institutions.
Strongarming its members used to work quite nicely for the NCAA, but fighting back worked well for North Carolina basketball, caught with its pants down after 18 years of academic fraud, and with Kansas, which went to the mat in defense of basketball coach Bill Self. Michigan appears to be mounting a similar defense in the post-Jim Harbaugh era.
We can see from Donde Plowman’s letter to NCAA president Charlie Baker that Tennessee will also use the scorched earth approach. How will Florida president Ben Sasse and athletic director Scott Stricklin take on the NCAA? Will they choose to duke it out bare knuckles with the NCAA or take a more passive approach for a negotiated settlement?
Compared to Florida State and Tennessee where money actually changed hands, it would seem Florida would be due for nothing more than a slap on the wrist since Rashada signed a private contract with a private group and no money was exchanged. However, past dealings should tell us never, under any circumstance, should the NCAA and its enforcement people be trusted. A show of force is always the best way to deal with the NCAA. If the NCAA doesn’t back down, take it to the courts where the NCAA has an abysmal record.
ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: Back in the days when Walter Byers ran the NCAA, only the IRS was more feared than the enforcement division and its chief pit bull David Berst. Just ask the University of Florida. When the Gators went to the NCAA’s version of the kangaroo court in September of 1984, Berst and the NCAA threatened the University of Florida with a fate worse than death if it didn’t fire Charley Pell. Florida didn’t fight back. Rather than stand by its man, Pell was fired and the stigma of the Florida case with the NCAA was like a scarlett letter he wore the rest of his life. Pell was an outstanding football coach and a pied piper of a recruiter but he never coached again. He was on the verge of the Louisville job but fear of NCAA reprisal ended that opportunity.
After Florida, Charley Pell never coached college football again. In retrospect, Florida should have done a Tammy Wynette defense to stand by its man but the powers that be caved to Berst and the threats. Anyone who has gone through Florida’s 1983-85 rosters can see what might have been. That was an NFL team Charley Pell recruited.
Here were are 40 years later and finally, there is a real chance the NCAA will roll over and die. It’s about time.
The NCAA has tried to portray itself as this paragon of virtue, fighting for the rights of student-athletes everywhere. Oh, it has done some good over the years and it does a dandy job of organizing championship tournaments, but there is this dirty little secret of selective enforcement that can no longer be hidden. For example, how is it that the NCAA stuck it to Florida in 1984, yet at the same time overlooked the sins of Vince Dooley at Georgia. The 109 violations the NCAA charged Florida with probably didn’t add up collectively to what Dooley and Georgia paid for Herschel Walker. If you have time on your hands, look up the case of Jan Kemp and how Dooley and Georgia tried to destroy her for exposing academic fraud. Do a search of Sam Gilbert and how he paid off UCLA basketball players during that rather remarkable run of 10 NCAA championships between 1963-76.
There is a reason the late, great Jerry Tarkanian once quipped that he liked transfers from other Division I schools “because they already had their cars paid for.” It’s called selective enforcement. The NCAA wanted Tark, but Tark eventually beat the NCAA in court.
Brick by brick the NCAA wall has been falling down in recent years as one school after another elected to challenge rather than capitulate. North Carolina and Kansas basketball fought and won. While some may think Jim Harbaugh was driven from Michigan to the Los Angeles Chargers by the threat of two NCAA investigations, those who know Harbaugh best say he was leaving for the NFL anyway. Michigan, by the way, is going to fight back.
Michigan will win just as Tennessee will win when it fights back over the allegations regarding Nico Iamaleava. Was Nico bought and paid for? You betcha. Did the NCAA, in its infinite wisdom, fail to come up with adequate by-laws to deal with NIL? Once more, you betcha.
College sports need rules and regulations. There should be adequate and fair punishment for schools that break the rules. The NCAA’s problem is it has outlived its usefulness and its ability to make and enforce the rules.
This latest attempt by the NCAA to bring back the scary days of yesteryear needs to backfire. Perhaps by fighting back, Tennessee will bring down the NCAA. Perhaps that will set in motion a new organization, this one run by business people and people who know sports, not by college presidents and bureaucrats.
