Jeremy Pruitt is sideshow. Real showdown at football infractions hearing is Tennessee vs NCAA

Danny White described the NCAA as Tennessee’s “partner” in the early days of a yearslong investigation into sweeping rules violations that occurred within coach Jeremy Pruitt’s football program.

Tennessee’s athletics director touted the well-oiled relationship between the school's outside counsel and NCAA enforcement.

Now, though, judgment day nears, and Tennessee’s once-reassuring outlook on this NCAA probe apparently has soured.

Honeymoon’s over, folks. A wolf in sheep’s clothing may have lured the Volunteerss into a trap.

After forging a cozy relationship with NCAA investigators, Tennessee appears headed for a contentious resolution with the Committee on Infractions, the NCAA’s equivalent of a judge.

Instead of agreeing to sanctions with a negotiated resolution that equates to a plea deal, the Volunteers will argue their case in front of the infractions committee during an April 19-21 hearing in Cincinnati.

Surely, Tennessee isn't prolonging this to quibble over minor penalties. If the NCAA had offered to let Tennessee off with a slap on the wrist while sending Pruitt’s career to the incinerator, Tennessee’s administration should shake the NCAA’s hand, swallow the tolerable sanctions and say, "Pleasure doing business with you."

That's why Tennessee taking its case to an NCAA hearing indicates trouble at the 11th hour.

Postseason ban-level trouble? That's unclear, but any stiff punishment would come as backfire in the face of Tennessee's strategy to cooperate with the NCAA, not self-impose stiffer penalties, and its rejection of a more amicable settlement with Pruitt.

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NCAA enforcement, last summer, said Tennessee failed to monitor its football program while Pruitt and his lackeys made a mockery of the rules and funneled almost $60,000 in cash and gifts to athletes, recruits, and players’ family members.

The degree to which Tennessee is sanctioned for that Level I failure to monitor charge will be crucial to the school's ability to build momentum under third-year coach Josh Heupel, who has restored the program to its best footing in two decades.

This case is a litmus test for whether NCAA enforcement has evolved beyond punishing athletes who were not involved in the scandal.

Tennessee may face threat of stiff NCAA sanctions

Tennessee is a guinea pig of sorts after the NCAA's new constitution went into effect last August. Previously, institutions that cooperated with NCAA investigators left themselves vulnerable to stiff punishment, including postseason bans, from the infractions committee.

Tennessee’s hopes that its cooperation would be honored are pinned to one sentence in the NCAA’s 20-page constitution, which says that “to the greatest extent possible … penalties imposed for infractions do not punish programs or student-athletes not involved nor implicated in the infraction.”

In other words, this constitution outlines a reduced chance for a postseason ban or other penalties that punish current athletes for sins of a past regime.

The NCAA, though, hasn't let the Volunteers off the hook. It maintains Tennessee failed to monitor coaches and staff members who flouted rules. NCAA enforcement compiled evidence of a whopping 18 Level I violations.

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As Tennessee chancellor Donde Plowman described it in January 2021, Pruitt and his associates carried out a “stunning” amount of malfeasance. the school evicted the bad seeds, but that never ensured absolution.

The NCAA labeled Tennessee’s failure to monitor as “substantial” and said this “seriously undermined or threatened the integrity” of college sports.

Tennessee's inability to negotiate an acceptable resolution with the NCAA, its old partner, makes me wonder how severe the penalties could be and whether those penalties might include a postseason ban after Tennessee brazenly opted to not self-impose a bowl ban in 2021.

Makes me wonder if the NCAA was unmoved by the Volunteers self-imposng sanctions that included recruiting restrictions and a reduction of 12 scholarships for the 2021 season.

Makes me wonder if Tennessee was foolish to invite NCAA suits to have an uninhibited look under its hood and meticulously document the mess that had occurred underneath.

Makes me continue to question Tennessee’s decision to not fire Phillip Fulmer.

Fulmer, the former longtime Vols football coach turned athletics director, was omnipresent around Pruitt’s program. The SEC even banned Fulmer from attending practice for a week after he violated NCAA rules by helping coach Tennessee’s offensive line during practice when he was AD.

Fulmer has spent most of his life in or around Tennessee’s football program. He was hired as AD in part because of his Tennessee football expertise. Nonetheless, Tennessee's administration insisted it was unreasonable to think Fulmer should have known about the malfeasance occurring under his nose. Fulmer, the university maintained, was among those hoodwinked by a clandestine operation carried out by a first-time coach, his wife, their babysitter and a few aides still wet behind the ears.

Fulmer spoke at Tennessee's news conference to announce Pruitt's firing, and the university sent Fulmer off with back-claps and a retirement package.

I wonder how that was received by the NCAA.

Jeremy Pruitt is sideshow at NCAA hearing. Tennessee's fate is main event

Pruitt will be in Cincinnati, too, to say his piece and face the music. Until now, Tennessee and the NCAA held the megaphone. This marks Pruitt’s chance to tell his side of the story, but Pruitt is a sideshow. He's roadkill, flattened by Tennessee, the NCAA, his losing record and his own carelessness.

Knowing Pruitt’s personality, I wouldn’t be surprised if he intends to blowtorch Tennessee at the hearing, but I question whether he has enough fuel to inflict further damage. If Pruitt had an ace up his sleeve, he should have played it and sued Tennessee for the $12.6 million buyout he did not receive after the school fired him for cause. Pruitt’s lawyer threated a fiery lawsuit. It never happened.

Pruitt faces the likelihood of a show-cause penalty. But, the showdown of greater consequence is Tennessee vs. the NCAA and the verdict from that failure to monitor charge.

A test of the NCAA’s new constitution

In the past few years, the NCAA kneecapped Missouri athletics and Oklahoma State basketball with postseason bans after those programs cooperated with investigations.

Other scandalous programs such as North Carolina basketball and Baylor football escaped stiff penalties after playing hardball with the NCAA and deploying clever defenses.

Tennessee’s public relations campaign has persistently pumped optimism throughout this investigation and downplayed the possibility of a postseason ban, directing the spotlight on the fired coaches.

The NCAA is in a state of transition, and Charlie Baker began his tenure as the association's president in March. If the Committee on Infractions hammers Tennessee despite its cooperation, the NCAA's new constitution will be unmasked as being altered in language but unchanged in principle.

Historically, the NCAA would cheer a school’s “exemplary cooperation" before levying crippling sanctions.

The NCAA hailed Tennessee’s partnership in this probe, but the university’s compliant approach also became self-serving. The festering malfeasance allowed Tennessee to fire its losing coach for cause on the heels of a 3-7 season and not pay Pruitt severance. Just four months earlier, Tennessee had rushed into a contract extension that increased Pruitt’s buyout.

The Volunteers got a fresh start with minor self-imposed penalties, the NCAA got cooperation, Fulmer got a retirement package and Pruitt got a pink slip.

Now, the other shoe drops.

The NCAA is no longer Tennessee’s friend. I’m not sure it ever was – just a black widow that became a convenient partner as the school fired its failing coach, while the Volunteers incautiously endangered themselves of getting trapped in the NCAA’s web.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY NETWORK: Tennessee faces NCAA at infractions hearing. Jeremy Pruitt is sideshow