Staples: Vols accused of nail treatments and brunches, but payoff was firing Jeremy Pruitt

If you could admit to paying $59,598 in hotel charges, nail salon visits and brunches that your organization wasn’t supposed to pay for so your organization might clear out a failing administration and save as much as $12.6 million on the back end, would you do it? Tennessee’s administration definitely wanted to fire Pruitt, whose bold strategy of trying to recreate 2011 Alabama in 2020 with far inferior players had proven inept. It outlines 18 violations of NCAA rules that include payments totaling the smaller number in that first paragraph — or less than the amount Pruitt made every six days during his time as Tennessee’s coach. An August 2020 meal at Ruby Sunshine cost $100 and hopefully included Eggs Cochon, an eggs Benedict dish that features “slow-cooked, apple-braised pork debris.” If most of the amounts listed in the NOA spent seem fairly specific, it’s because the staffers clearly never read Rule No. Pruitt might threaten to spill tea, but as long as Tennessee wasn’t covering up something more serious than NCAA rules violations most of the public doesn’t care about anyway, he can’t do much damage.