Most schools try to downplay the impact of the violations which occurred at their school. Tennessee has accepted a lot of the NCAA’s position with regard to the violations at the school.
However, Tennessee officials are trying to reclassify some of the violations away from major violations to secondary violations. The violations involved relate to:
- “Bumping”–running into players you are not allowed to talk to and continuing conversations beyond a mere greeting
- Approved expenses for recruiting visits which lasted beyond 48 hours
- Impermissible phone calls which were of short duration
Tennessee also tried to defend the way it handled the Bruce Pearl situation. The school says that it did not immediately fire Pearl because it felt that such an immediate reaction (over-reaction??) would create a chilling effect and would discourage others from self-reporting violations.
The reality is that Tennessee acknowledges that the relatively minor violations which Pearl committed could have been resolved fairly easily had it not been for the subsequent decisions which aggravated the situation.
