tennesseeduke
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Not saying they aren't dirty--of course they all are--but the NCAA is likely trying to justify its regulatory existence here. I'm not sure what meaningful sanctions on a program would even look like in a post NIL SEC. Scholarship docking is so toothless as to be laughable. Half these guys can just walk into the registrar's office with a roll of cash.
That’s exactly what happenedCould be. I always wondered about kids that chose Georgia over UT when UT had offered them decent money under Pruitt. I think it was Amarius Mims who was mentioned in the investigation? If UT was offering him money then Georgia would have potentially offered more for him to sign there instead.
That’s exactly what happened
I heard Kirby offered 150K to Mims and Quay Walker nearly 100K more than Pruitt offered and they went switched to Georgia of course I still remember Quay throwing the Tennessee hat down on signing day those dudes were headed to Tennessee initially.From what I've read, Pruitt paid a total of $60,000 to recruits. So if Pruitt offered Mims a few thousand dollars, that means that UGA must have offered more to get an athlete from the state of Georgia to attend UGA? Meanwhile UGA was hovering near the top of college football, had already been to the CFB playoff championship, and Tennessee was in the midst of a long run of mediocrity?
I'm willing to entertain the possibility that UGA has paid recruits, maybe even Amarius Mims. But it's not logical to insist that UGA must have outbid Tennessee to sign a Georgia high school athlete at that point in time.
. Yes Georgia was light years ahead of UT in 2018 and 2019 so why would Kirby have to outbid Pruitt who was coming off a 5-7 season and in midst of another rebuild? I know the logic don’t make sense but Pruitt was trying by all means necessary to recruit at the level Kirby and Saban was recruiting especially on defense. Let’s remember too who Kirby and Jeremy both coached under. You get a dodge charger he gets a dodge charger we all get new dodge chargers.He may have paid more than that, for all I know. But it seems unlikely he was bidding against Jeremy Pruitt because it wasn't necessary.
. Yes Georgia was light years ahead of UT in 2018 and 2019 so why would Kirby have to outbid Pruitt who was coming off a 5-7 season and in midst of another rebuild? I know the logic don’t make sense but Pruitt was trying by all means necessary to recruit at the level Kirby and Saban was recruiting especially on defense. Let’s remember too who Kirby and Jeremy both coached under. You get a dodge charger he gets a dodge charger we all get new dodge chargers.
Yea I don’t know that it made much sense that Kirby who was coming off a 11-3 season in 2018 and the SEC title season in 2017 that he would have to get in a bidding war with Pruitt over a Georgia player from Georgia. It’s just what I heard take it with a grain of salt. It seems like in the recruits mind and especially being from Georgia that at that time going to Georgia over a rebuilding Tennessee would be a no brainer. Since 2017 Kirby has largely built a wall around Georgia and usually keeps the top in state recruits at home and in Athens. To turn the narrative around Tennessee needs to beat Georgia and win the SEC then things get more interesting.I'm not talking about Pruitt's mentatlity, or Kirby Smart's or Nick Saban's mentality. I'm talking about a recuits' thought proceess. I just don't think that Kirby was competing on an even keel with Pruitt at that point in time, especially not for recruits from Georgia. The situtation is different now and if Georgia and Tennessee go head to head for a recruit, money may well be the deciding factor.
it most certainly was for Quay Walker. He privately commited to Pruitt during his visit.
Theoretically I guess, but that just doesn't pass the sniff test to me.Like I said above, anything's possible but this assertion doesn't equal certainty for me. Tennessee is a storied program and a program on the rise under Heupel, but during Pruitt's time there UGA's recruiting advantage vs Tennessee was not money, it was results. And in Walker's case, possibly the attraction of playing for the home state school. Even if Walker did take money from Pruitt, he could have stuck it in his pocket and gone to UGA without being paid twice, because he though that was a better path for NFL money.