Tennessee football must vacate 11 wins as part of NCAA punishment
Along with an $8M fine and the loss of several scholarships over the next five years, the Tennessee football program will also have to vacate all 11 of its wins from the 2019 and 2020 seasons.
Tennessee was hit with the punishment on Friday after an NCAA investigation found more than 200 recruiting violations during the tenure of former head coach Jeremy Pruitt, resulting in the punishment. Those recruiting violations included improper payments directly to recruits and their families totaling more than $60K.
The NCAA found that Tennessee used 16 players that were deemed ineligible during those seasons.
Sources told ESPN that some of the players who were declared ineligible, including those who transferred to other schools, were later able to regain their eligibility by being granted immunity and cooperating with the NCAA in its investigation of Tennessee.
Because Tennessee fully cooperated in the investigation and had already self-imposed some punishments the program was able to avoid a postseason ban.
But the 11 vacated wins mean that Tennessee records will officially be changed in the record books to 0-5 (2019) and 0-7 (2020), dropping Pruitt's record to 5-19 during his time with the program.
Among those vacated wins are the 2019 Gator Bowl, Pruitt's only postseason appearance with the Volunteers.
The vacated wins also temporarily drops Tennessee out of the top-10 all-time in college football wins.
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