Bruce Pearl Was Given A 'Letter Of Termination.' Still Not Fired.

Who invited Uncle Bruce to the tailgate?

The Pearl situation at UT just continues to get worse.  Tennessee apparently sent Bruce a ‘letter of terminatino of (their) employee agreement,’ in the beginning of Septemeber, but it has just been dug up by some media members, and it does a pretty good job of summing the whole thing up.  Check out the letter in full here, but here are some highlights.

In the letter, UT aknowledges that:

-Pearl knowingly committed violations by inviting recruits and their families into his house.  Even going so far as telling them it was a violation, and asking them to pinky promise not to tell anyone.

–Pearl prepped his assistant coaches for their NCAA interviews after he had his, which is a major no-no.

–He lied to the NCAA, claimed he was unable to recognize the picture of recruits as being in his house, as well as unable to recognize one of his assistants wives – also in a picture.

-Ultimately, Pearl “engaged in gross misconduct, including dishonesty and other acts involving intolerable behavior.”

But, to be noted, this letter only voided his former contract – he is now simply an ‘at will’ employee (as Matt pointed out last night.)  The fact of the matter is, even after this letter was sent in early September, UT still sent Pearl a new contract (though the terms of which are undisclosed and it remains unsigned.)

This whole thing is getting a bit ridiculous, and you wonder if it’s just a matter of time before the AD at UT has to pay for this fiasco as well as the Lane Kiffin experiment.