Tennessee chancellor sends scathing letter admonishing NCAA amid new NIL investigation

Tennessee chancellor Donde Plowman sent a scathing letter to NCAA president Charlie Baker amid the reports of an NCAA investigation into the athletic department.

“The leaders of intercollegiate athletics owe it to student-athletes and their families to establish clear rules and to act in their best interest,” the letter read in part. “Instead, two and a half years of vague and contradictory NCAA memos, emails and ‘guidance’ about name, image and likeness (NIL) has created extraordinary chaos that student-athletes and institutions are struggling to navigate.

“In short, the NCAA is failing.”

Plowman also gave a summary of what the NCAA is set to allege.

“The NCAA enforcement staff’s intended processing of the proposed allegations is replete with legal and procedural defects, including unsettled and outstanding interpretive questions that require further attention and input from the NCAA membership, particularly given the novel nature of the issue and the gravity of such determinations,” Plowman wrote. “Further, some of the allegations are simply factually untrue.”

And once again, Plowman was the latest official to want NIL legislation.

“It is intellectually dishonest for the NCAA staff to issue guidelines that say a third-party collective/business may meet with prospective student-athletes, discuss NIL, even enter into a contract with prospective student-athletes, but at the same time say that the collective may not engage in conversations that would be of a recruiting nature,” Plowman wrote. “Any discussion about NIL might factor into a prospective student-athlete’s decision to attend an institution. This creates an inherently unworkable situation, and everyone knows it.”

Just last summer, Tennessee was penalized for more than 200 rules infractions in the football program. Now, there is reportedly more to come.

According to SI’s Pat Forde, details are scarce but the penalties could be severe since this isn’t the school’s first rodeo.

“Details are scarce on what Tennessee is potentially facing in the latest case, including the number of involved sports,” Forde wrote. “The school acknowledged the investigation to SI, but declined further comment, other than to say it has not received a notice of allegations from NCAA Enforcement … A source familiar with the inquiry tells SI that Tennessee does not believe it has committed any violations in the NIL realm. The source cited NCAA guidance in that evolving area as ‘vague and contradictory.’”