The NCAA approved Jacksonville State’s proposal to add former Tennessee coach and Alabama assistant Jeremy Pruitt to its coaching staff as an analyst, according to Bama247’s Mike Rodak. The NCAA held a show-cause hearing with Jacksonville State on Oct. 23 and delivered a letter this week stating that it cleared the move for both sides.
Notably, the amendment to Pruitt’s show-cause order does not apply to any other schools that may be interested in his services during the remainder of the order’s period. Pruitt was tagged with a six-year show-cause in 2023 as a result of the NCAA’s investigation into recruiting violations committed during his tenure at Tennessee.
Jacksonville State also must place restrictions in areas where the NCAA previously found violations occurred — which likely means Pruitt won’t have much say over recruiting efforts — and that the university must “implement a robust monitoring program with shared responsibilities involving the compliance staff, head football coach, director of athletics and university president.”
“We applaud the intentional effort that JSU put into its proposed plan,” the NCAA wrote in its letter to Jacksonville State. “The proposal, collaborative discussion at the hearing and outcome demonstrate the show-cause process working as intended. Additionally, the COI appreciates JSU’s stated commitment to compliance and its transparent acknowledgement that potential future violations carry risk.”
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Additionally, Pruitt will not be allowed to attend games in person as he serves out the remainder of a suspension. He will work alongside Jacksonville State coach Charles Kelly, who was on Pruitt’s Tennessee staff in 2018 and who coached alongside Pruitt as an assistant at Florida State.
A longtime former defensive assistant, including a stint as Alabama’s defensive coordinator from 2016-17, Pruitt replaced Butch Jones as Tennessee’s coach in 2018. He had just one winning season with the Vols and, including vacated wins, departed Knoxville with a 16-19 record before he was fired in January 2021 after an internal investigation returned evidence of significant recruiting violations.
The NCAA announced in July 2023 that Pruitt and his staff were responsible for over 200 individual violations, including 18 Level I transgressions. Tennessee received an $8 million fine, a restriction in scholarships and five years of probation.
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