The Tennessee Volunteers received their notice of allegations from the NCAA. The most eye-catching stuff in the report relates to Vols hoops coach Bruce Pearl's lying to investigators.
On the football side, the report focuses on former Tennessee head coach Lane Kiffin, who, to put it mildly, had a stormy one-year run in Knoxville and an even stormier exit from Volunteer Country.
The NCAA alleges that UT football staff members made 16 impermissible phone calls to recruits and that Kiffin allegedly permitted a then-recruiting intern, Steve Rubio, to make impermissible off-campus contact with high school administrators. The contact in question came when Rubio, a product of Ft. Lauderdale's St. Thomas Aquinas High, drove Kiffin to his alma mater's campus, which is against rules.
Many of the Vols football staffers mentioned in the report no longer work at Tennessee, but Rubio still does. He is the team's director of player personnel under current head coach Derek Dooley.
According to a source, the impermissible phone calls took place in early January, while some members of Kiffin's staff were in Texas at the U.S. Army All-American Game. The calls went to five recruits, two of which are current UT players. The other three are Miami Hurricanes offensive tackle Seantrel Henderson, UCLA Bruins defensive lineman Brandon Willis and Baylor Bears defensive back Ahmad Dixon. I don't understand why the report blacked out the names of the current UT players, but not those of the Tennessee recruits who ended up at other schools.
