How the NCAA response to Tennessee, Virginia fell flat

Following news that the NCAA was investigating Tennessee over NIL-related issues, the attorney generals of Tennessee and Virginia filed a lawsuit against the NCAA. This prompted a response in court from the NCAA.

Shortly following that on Andy Staples On3, Jesse Simonton and Staples broke down that response and explained why they agreed that it fell flat.

“[Greg] Sankey is looking at the back and forth at Tennessee embroiled with the NCAA,” Jesse Simonton said. “Both sides kind of shot their shot their shot again this weekend. Saturday, the NCAA responded. Sunday, today, the AGs of Tennessee and Virginia had their response, and it’s just the amount of tone-deafness from the NCAA is just insane. But as I’ve said on multiple radio shows this week, the irony in all this is they’re all bad actors. There’s no good actors. The NCAA is clearly the easy punching bag and is the big bad villain because you see what they say on Saturday and it’s just so nonsensical.”

At that point, Staples jumped in to break down what Simonton was talking about. He also explained what’s at stake in this case.

“What Jessie’s talking about is the case where the Tennessee and Virginia AGs have sued the NCAA, basically on behalf of the University of Tennessee because the University of Tennessee is being investigated for NIL stuff. So, they are trying to invalidate the NIL rules. There’s a hearing on February 13th where if a judge were to grant a temporary restraining order, the NIL rules would be basically invalidated.”

Staples also did point to one point the NCAA made that he felt was a strong one. However, that was the only point that he agreed with.

“So, the NCAA issued its response. I did think they made one good point. You know I don’t always praise the NCAA, but I’ll say they made one good point. You know that Tennessee state law also prohibits inducing recruits with NIL deals. They did point that out. Like, your AG doesn’t seem to notice his own state law,” Staples said.

“But that said, the rest of it was not great because they went with the competitive equity argument, which they have no data to back up and, unfortunately, it’s a small sample size that says since NIL and the transfer rules have changed, things have gotten more competitive.”

At that point, Simonton jumped back in to emphasize how much the NCAA seems to misunderstand how college athletic recruiting works. He also emphasized that confusion about the actual NIL rules is becoming a bigger and bigger issue.

“To me, it kind of read off like a complete misunderstanding of how recruiting works. It’s like, newsflash, prospects like going to better schools with nicer facilities and a greater infrastructure and coaches. Yes, that is an inducement but it’s also like naturally how recruiting has worked since it ever started. I can’t wait until the folks that work in Indianapolis and the NCAA realize that five-star hotels are nicer than a Motel 6 or that flying first class comes with perks. It was like Newsflash 101,” Simonton said.

“The most interesting thing that came out of the response today from the Tennessee AG was basically acknowledging the reality that the other reason there’s confusion about these rules, in terms of the governing market and what is and isn’t allowed for these collegiate athletes is because the NCAA is constantly changing the definition of these incoherent rules. They keep moving the goalposts and that, again, is why we are now seeing Sankey again, it’s all tied together, and that’s why Sankey and [Tony] Petitti are coming together to figure out how we can best fix this problem, which is these moving goalposts.”

NCAA files response in Tennessee, Virginia NIL lawsuit

On Saturday, the NCAA filed its response to the lawsuit from Tennessee and Virginia.

“Allowing member institutions and associated groups or individuals to induce prospective student-athletes to attend a particular institution by offering NIL compensation would inevitably lead to a greater concentration of talent in a smaller number of member institutions,” the response states.

Later, the NCAA argued that the lawsuit would invite chaos and that any change would need to be deliberated.

“There is no reason to upend this process, invite chaos on a moment’s notice, and transform college sports into an environment where players and schools match up based primarily on the dollars that can change hands,” the filing reads. “Requests for radical change require sound deliberation.”