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- The Tennessee Volunteers are in big trouble and they’re throwing everything they can at the problem.
- An internal investigation into their football program has cost the school a LOT of money.
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Last November, the University of Tennessee began an internal investigation into the football team. The investigation focuses mostly on current players and recruits being given illegal benefits and has cost the program a fortune.
Over the past eight months, the athletic department has reportedly paid out just short of ONE MILLION DOLLARS to the law firm of Bond, Schoeneck and King. And the tab only continues to grow with each day that passes.
Tennessee, like many programs across college football, was (allegedly) paying their players. They got caught in embarrassing fashion and used the opportunity to clean house.
Claims against the school are hilarious and the school has its tail between its legs with guilt. At one point, Vols boosters were reportedly handing out McDonald’s bags full of cash during recruit visits, which is about the trashiest, most Tennessee way it could be done.
That’s where attorneys Kyle Skillman and Michael Glazier come in. They were hired by the university last year and are set out to find out exactly what happened.
A lot of money to find out what Tennessee already knows.
However, their services are not cheap. According to documents obtained by OutKick, the law firm has billed the university every month since November and the highest bill totaled $189,171 in January.
The lowest bill was $12,876 in November, when the investigation was launched. Since then, the second lowest invoice came at $77,211 for May and the third lowest was for August at $87,285.04.
With a whopping total of over $943,607 through August, Tennessee is likely to spend more than $1,000,000 on the investigation. Considering that it is already coming off of a down financial year due to COVID-19, taking an extra million off of the top is not ideal.
For the investigation to approach the year mark is absurd. The cost could have been cut in half if the process had been expedited. There is simply no need for it to have drawn out this long.
To make things even more brutal, the investigation won’t solve much. The Vols’ athletic department is spending all of this money to then step in front of the NCAA council and tuck their tails between their legs.
Tennessee knows full well what their violations looked like, but having the law firm on its side is a necessary evil. Skillman and Glazier’s report will help present the best case possible to the governing body.
Either way, the Vols are in big trouble and the impending punishment should be the modern day death penalty. It should be a two year bowl ban, a loss of scholarships and probation.
So, to reiterate, Tennessee is spending close to $1 million for the same result that probably would have happened anyway.
If, somehow, UT gets off easy, the NCAA is showing its true colors by reducing the punishment for a “big name” program. Not because of the investigation.