Jeremy Pruitt’s attorney releases statement following firing at Tennessee

The attorney of now-former Tennessee coach Jeremy Pruitt released a statement after getting fired with cause on Monday.

On Monday, the University of Tennessee announced that they fired head coach Jeremy Pruitt with cause after three seasons. The reasoning behind the firing was that the university conducted an investigation and found that the program had conducted numerous Level I and Level II recruiting violations. In Pruitt’s termination letter, Chancellor Donde Plowman and athletic director Phillip Fulmer said there was a “failure to promote and maintain an atmosphere of compliance,” via The Washington Post.

Pruitt’s attorney, Michael Lyons, released a statement that evening, accusing Tennessee of firing the head coach as a way to get out of his contract.

Pruitt fighting for his buyout fee

“This afternoon, Coach Pruitt learned that Tennessee was terminating his employment for cause,” writes Lyons, via Brett Murphy of Stadium. “He is extremely disappointed with the decision, the public announcement of which was made prior to any substantive opportunity to respond before the appropriate decision makers. We believe the decision to be the culmination of an orchestrated effort to renege on contractural promises made to Coach Pruitt upon his hiring in 2017 and reiterated less than five months ago.”

The rest of Lyons’ statement can be read in McMurphy’s tweet below.

Prior to the start of the 2020 season, Tennessee signed Pruitt to a two-year contract extension which was scheduled to run out at the end of the 2025 campaign. With that deal, Pruitt was set to be paid over $4.2 million annually, per Knox News. Now that Tennessee fired Pruitt with cause, they don’t have to pay him his $12.6 million buyout fee.

Pruitt wasn’t the only person to be shown the door by Tennessee. Assistant coaches Brian Neidermeyer and Sheldon Felton, four on-campus football recruiting staff members, a football analyst/quality control coach and the director and assistant director of football player personnel were terminated as well for the violations. Plowman and Fulmer says that those infractions could lead to “significant penalties to the university and has jeopardized the eligibility of our student-athletes,” via David Ubben of The Athletic.

Pruitt will fight for the money he believes is owed to him, while Tennessee looks to find a coach to lead the team out of this controversy and back to success.

For more NCAA football news, analysis, opinion and unique coverage by FanSided, including Heisman Trophy and College Football Playoff rankings, be sure to bookmark these pages.