NCAA Bundles Past Violations In Other Sports Against Tennessee As Heavyweight Fight Brews | Trey Wallace

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- A heavyweight fight between the NCAA and a member institution is brewing, and Tennessee has stepped into the ring. 

Don't be fooled by the ongoing chatter around college athletics that the NCAA is looking to right its wrong. The NCAA is hounding schools over past transgressions that it wasn't prepared to deal with almost three years ago. The upcoming battle between the State of Tennessee and the Commonwealth of Virginia could get messy, which is exactly what the Vols administration wants. 

Almost a full week of support from opposing fan-bases and member institutions has put Tennessee athletics back into the spotlight, even though they've tried to stay out of it. Obviously these two parties don't need an introduction, given that Tennessee and the NCAA recently sat in the same room together to discuss pending allegations. 

But it's the repeat offender status that has Tennessee officials on the offensive, trying to speed past the NCAA like a Josh Heupel offense. In no way does the school want to be fighting the NCAA once again after a long process dealing with the Jeremy Pruitt fallout. So, when you see athletic director Danny White and Chancellor Donde Plowman both commenting on this publicly, something the school rarely did during the Pruitt fiasco, it's clear they feel as if they're being done dirty. 

Will Problems From The Past Hurt Tennessee In This Case?

This question is one of the reasons why the Tennessee administration is fighting so hard in the court of public opinion. We all know that the NCAA is treading water in this new era of college athletics, which makes their current inquiries feel overdrawn. 

But in the case of potential past problems coming back to hurt the Vols in their fight against the NCAA, it all depends on who you ask. One of the problems that the athletic department is facing doesn't just involve quarterback Nico Iamaleava and his recruitment to Tennessee. No, the NCAA is looking to bundle a few mistakes over the past year into this current investigation, according to sources. Even though it probably shouldn't be the case, the NCAA is currently not willing to separate compliance issues stemming from the baseball and basketball program. 

These are not all new violations that have been uncovered during the investigation, but the NCAA remaining steadfast on involving baseball coach Tony Vitello's situation from last season and basketball assistant Rod Clark being suspended for the first two games of the season for an incident that happened in the past are being used against the Vols. 

More so, the NCAA seems to bundling this thing together like a television package. 

The point is, there weren't new violations uncovered, which could've fooled Tennessee folks when reading initial reports. So, if you were worried about the baseball or basketball program, you should be able to breathe easy for the time being. 

The NCAA has decided that they will go after the Vols athletic department for just about anything they can find, even if small in nature. Vitello had already served a suspension that related to baseball transfer Maui Ahuna, while Clark was on the Vols bench by the third game. This doesn't pertain to a certain coach, but more towards incidents found within different sports. 

But in the eyes of the NCAA, they are looking at this as a pattern. So, it's safe to say that the organization is grasping for anything possible to hammer the Tennessee athletic department with a lack of institutional control, making it public through intermediate sources that there are folks inside the building that were freaking out. 

Unfortunately for the NCAA, while they were looking into Tennessee and other programs, the State of Tennessee had seen enough, and started working on a lawsuit to bring the organization out of the court of public opinion and into a courthouse in East Tennessee. 

This is a fight that NCAA president Charlie Baker would love to see disappear, but unfortunately they poked the wrong bear. 

Did The Big Ten And SEC Becoming Best Friends Just Hurt The NCAA Case?

On Friday it was announced that the SEC and Big Ten would be joining forces to create an advisory group to help navigate their conferences into this new era of college athletics. One of those areas is NIL enforcement and how to better serve the college community, especially with the NCAA grasping at straws on how to ‘fix’ the problem. 

SEC, Big Ten Leaders Join For Better 'Future Of Sports' - Translation: Move Over NCAA?

The SEC is led by one of the smartest minds in college athletics, with Greg Sankey. So having the biggest and baddest commissioner in the country is a great cornerman in Tenneessee's fight against the NCAA. He was with the Vols contingent in Cincinatti when they went in-front of the NCAA, and according to emails contained inside Tennessee's response to the NCAA on Monday, he spoke with Charlie Baker regarding the investigation. 

So when he was asked about the new partnership with the Big Ten, Sankey made it a point to tell Yahoo that the two conferences have to start working together on items such as litigation. 

"We are not going to be status quo," Greg Sankey told Ross Dellenger. "Who is responsible (for the current state)? We could paint with a pretty broad brush. I actually have the responsibility to look forward. Yeah, we are dealing with a lot. States, congressional interest, litigation. The observation here is we have to start thinking together."

Now, we will see how much influence the new group has on potential cases involving NIL, like the one Tennessee is preparing to fight in court.