Plowman: Tennessee facing multiple Level I and Level II violations

It’s been a very dark day for Tennessee football. The Volunteers moved on from Jeremy Pruitt, firing him and multiple members of his staff for cause. Tennessee made things official this afternoon as Chancellor Donde Plowman made the announcement.

While there may be optimism for a new direction in Knoxville, that was met with the fact that Tennessee is now dealing with some major NCAA violations. Chancellor Plowman revealed that their internal investigation showed multiple level I and II recruiting violations — something that could greatly affect Tennessee’s ability to find a top level head coach to turn this all around.

“It was stunning,” Chancellor Plowman said on Monday. “The number of people involved, as I said in my comments, and the number of incidents. So yes, that was shocking. That’s partly what you see in the level of actions that were taken.”

Per the NCAA, here’s what a level I violation is defined as.

Academic fraud

Failure to cooperate in an NCAA enforcement investigation

Individual unethical or dishonest conduct

Lack of institutional control

Violation due to a head coach’s responsibility for an underlying Level I violation by an individual within the sport program

These violations are an important piece of this puzzle. Who can Tennessee attract with all of this coming directly at them? Would a top flight up-and-comer even want this job right now? Seems to me that Tennessee needs a veteran looking over things during the next few years — someone to at least stop the bleeding.