When Ray announced our bowl ban just before the season began he referenced possible sanctions and used what happened to Tennessee football as an analogy, if I remember correctly...
He did not use a reference to the Air Force Academy that had recruiting rules infractions during Covid, that mirrored those that occurred at ASU, rather than what happened at Tennessee under a coach (Jeremy Pruitt) who was fired by UTenn and shown the door without paying him one cent of his buy-out figure that was over $12M...
The Tenn infractions were egregious and came as a result of its head coach and staff willfully violating recruiting rules, etc, during the coaches time at the school...
Tenn was hit with an $8M fine in lieu of a bowl ban and placed on five years probation that included the loss of 28 scholarships over five years or about five-six a year so instead of having recruiting classes of 25 or thereabouts they were diminished by about five a year, if I'm reading this correctly...
The AFA, on the other hand, whose violations occurred during Covid restrictions, like the ones at ASU, received these sanctions...
Two years probation and a reduction in squad size by 10 over four years...so instead of having a squad of around 115 the AFA squad size would go down to 105 during that time period...
They did not lose any scholarships but had some reductions in recruiting evaluation periods and in recruiting visits (46) during those two years...
They were also fined which is thought to be in the neighborhood of $5K - $10K with some sort of additional fee tacked on that would raise that amount by an insignificant figure (all toll less than $100K)...
There was no bowl ban attached to the penalties, either...
So, IMHO, Ray's use of the Tenn situation when talking about our bowl ban was just a disingenuous ploy on his part...
There is absolutely no comparison between what happened at Tenn and ASU under Herm during the Covid restrictions period...
Our violations are much closer to those that happened at the AFA, so I would expect somewhat similar penalties when they are given, after negotiations with our athletic dept...
Ray is just being Ray and we all know what that means, don't we...
Our hero...Go Devils!!!
He did not use a reference to the Air Force Academy that had recruiting rules infractions during Covid, that mirrored those that occurred at ASU, rather than what happened at Tennessee under a coach (Jeremy Pruitt) who was fired by UTenn and shown the door without paying him one cent of his buy-out figure that was over $12M...
The Tenn infractions were egregious and came as a result of its head coach and staff willfully violating recruiting rules, etc, during the coaches time at the school...
Tenn was hit with an $8M fine in lieu of a bowl ban and placed on five years probation that included the loss of 28 scholarships over five years or about five-six a year so instead of having recruiting classes of 25 or thereabouts they were diminished by about five a year, if I'm reading this correctly...
The AFA, on the other hand, whose violations occurred during Covid restrictions, like the ones at ASU, received these sanctions...
Two years probation and a reduction in squad size by 10 over four years...so instead of having a squad of around 115 the AFA squad size would go down to 105 during that time period...
They did not lose any scholarships but had some reductions in recruiting evaluation periods and in recruiting visits (46) during those two years...
They were also fined which is thought to be in the neighborhood of $5K - $10K with some sort of additional fee tacked on that would raise that amount by an insignificant figure (all toll less than $100K)...
There was no bowl ban attached to the penalties, either...
So, IMHO, Ray's use of the Tenn situation when talking about our bowl ban was just a disingenuous ploy on his part...
There is absolutely no comparison between what happened at Tenn and ASU under Herm during the Covid restrictions period...
Our violations are much closer to those that happened at the AFA, so I would expect somewhat similar penalties when they are given, after negotiations with our athletic dept...
Ray is just being Ray and we all know what that means, don't we...
Our hero...Go Devils!!!
