Yahoo! sports strikes again with yet another reported NCAA violation, this time another leftover from the Tennessee Volunteers failed Lane Kiffin Experiment:
An assistant coach during Lane Kiffin’s tenure at the University of Tennessee wired $1,500 to a talent scout in July 2009, funding the airfare for an unofficial recruiting trip by then five-star prospect Lache Seastrunk and his mother, Yahoo! Sports has learned.
Yikes. And just when the Vols were thinking they had put that sordid past adventure behind them. I really can't express how badly the Kiffin-Tennessee thing seems to have worked out for the Volunteers. I'm sure they must be weary of all this bad news, but one wonders if even this report is the end.
The good news, at least in my opinion, is that this should be considered part and parcel of the earlier investigation by the NCAA into the football program, it's just something both the school and the NCAA missed. That should hopefully keep out the possibility of a "repeat offender" charge with its associated raft of horrible penalties.
But then again, this is the NCAA, as mercurial as Britney Spears. Logic and consistency are two concepts that NCAA enforcement feels no compunction to embrace, so for all I know, Tennessee could have their entire athletic department banned under a "show cause" penalty, Neyland Stadium razed to the ground, and the earth salted.
UPDATE: By way of a response to this latest revelation, Rocky Top Talk throws up their hands.