In desperate times, the NCAA is trying to make an example out of Tennessee | Estes

The NCAA has the University of Tennessee in its crosshairs for potentially violating rules regarding name, image and likeness benefits, which brings to mind an obvious question.

Rules? What rules?

Who knew there were rules to this NIL game? I’ve often been told how there weren’t any that would – or even could be – enforced. Oh sure, the NCAA has spouted off impractical guidelines about how collectives shouldn’t use NIL inducements to recruit transfers and high school stars. Meanwhile, anyone paying the slightest attention knows universities and programs have been having to do exactly that to keep up.

So now, all of college sports stands like Joe Pesci’s eternal Vincent LaGuardia Gambini from the movie “My Cousin Vinny,” comically staring at the judge: “You were serious about that?”

The NCAA is making an overdue attempt to get a handle on what it let get out of control.

In doing so, it is making an example of Tennessee.

There will be others. But Tuesday, it was Tennessee making headlines in Sports Illustrated and The New York Times and ESPN for being sent to the principal’s office while the entire class was misbehaving.

Why would Tennessee be singled out for scrutiny?

Could have been all the rumbles about what it took to get quarterback Nico Iamaleava to Knoxville. The NCAA suspects it was a private jet, according to The Times.

And anyone remember an article from The Athletic in February 2022 about the UT-centric collective Spyre Sports? Ran under the headline “Cars, apartments and ‘six-figure packages’: Inside the new, money-fueled frontier of the college football arms race.” Had the phrase “recruiting superweapon” in the first sentence, and it featured quotes like this from Hunter Baddour, president of Spyre: “We’re prepared to invest a substantial amount of resources into the 2023 recruiting class.”

In hindsight, being so conspicuous was a bad idea.

But, hey, it made business-sense. What good is an NIL collective if no one knows about it? Fans need to be aware to donate money. Potential students need to be aware of what it can do for them on campus. It’s not just football players. Spyre has signed more than 100 UT athletes across 11 sports.

It’s naïve to expect that recruits or transfers would communicate with collectives and select a school on the off-hand chance that he or she might get an NIL deal. That's silly. Of course, you’d want to know the amount ahead of time. Good luck proving that and enforcing it, though.

It could be argued, too, that it wasn’t explicitly illegal until the NCAA’s guidance in May 2022 reinforced that it was against the rules to recruit with NIL benefits – and that programs could face retroactive punishment for actions dating back to the previous summer.

The Vols were an easy target. They have a prominent collective. They’d been in trouble recently, too.

They cooperated with the NCAA during their previous enforcement case. That’s not going to be the case this time, as evidenced by the defiant tone of Monday’s letter from UT chancellor Donde Plowman to NCAA president Charlie Baker.

“The leaders of intercollegiate athletics owe it to student-athletes and their families to establish clear rules and to act in their best interest,” Plowman wrote in her opening. “Instead, two-and-a-half years of vague and contradictory NCAA memos, emails and ‘guidance’ about name, image and likeness has created extraordinary chaos that student-athletes and institutions are struggling to navigate. In short, the NCAA is failing.”

The phrase “intellectually dishonest” appeared more than once in Plowman’s letter.

Them's fighting words. Tennessee will not go quietly on this, and neither will any other university caught up in the NCAA’s latest enforcement push.

It’s Tennessee today. Tomorrow, it could easily be anyone else.

Everyone in college sports knows it, too.

Just don't ask them what's legal and what isn't and what's going to be enforceable when it comes to NIL. That part still needs quite a bit of work.

Reach Tennessean sports columnist Gentry Estes at gestes@tennessean.com and on the X platform (formerly known as Twitter) @Gentry_Estes.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Desperate NCAA trying to make example out of Tennessee football