Report: Three Tennessee high school football teams violate TSSAA recruiting rules

According to a report by The Tennessean on Thursday evening, multiple Tennessee high school football programs violated the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association (TSSA) recruiting rule.

Per the report, Brentwood Academy (TN) self-imposed sanctions on its own football program in response to the TSSAA recruiting rule violation after the state association had put in an inquiry regarding the matter. The TSSAA sent a letter to Brentwood Academy regarding the situation surrounding the recruiting rule.

“While commenting or liking transfer announcements may seem inconsequential, when a student has signed a contract formally declaring their intent to transfer, such interactions can validate others who might be considering transferring to a school by commenting on or sharing their announcements through social media. For this reason, activities such as this are considered a violation of Article II, Section 17 (the recruiting rule),” the TSSAA letter states according to the Tennessean.

The TSSAA recruiting rule, Article II, Section 17, prohibits school-associated personnel from using influence, including social media interactions, to induce students to attend a school for athletic purposes. Illegal recruiting includes direct contact with athletes from the seventh grade and on, offering special benefits, or targeting prospective students via social media.

The report states that Brentwood Academy will forfeit five days of spring practice and the football coach in question of violating the recruiting rule will be suspended from team activities for five days.

The Eagles finished last season with a 12-1 record, ranked fourth in the state, according to the final Tennessee High School Football Massey Rankings after reaching the BlueCross Bowl TSSAA Class 3A, Division II state championship game. With a number of players recently announcing their intentions to transfer to Eagles, it certainly puts the program under scrutiny.

“There’s a gray area in the interpretation of our violation,” Brentwood Academy coach Paul Wade said in the report about the violation. “We did exactly what we thought was correct. What’s disturbing about it is … Why would we jeopardize our program by putting something in the public eye of social media if it was illegal? I just don’t see the correlation there whatsoever. But they say it is (a violation) and they’re the governing body, so we do what they say.”

After a kid has already been accepted … That’s not enticing a kid to come to school. That’s no different than our admission department sending a yard sign to put in their yards that says, ‘Home of a future BA Eagle.’ But the world we live today is social media. So, I think there need to be better guidelines set up for what that really entails.”

Also in the Tennessean’s report was Maryville and Middle Tennessee Christian School being reprimanded by the TSSA for self-reported recruiting rule violations. The two programs were fined a total of $500 and put on probation for the duration of one year.

Maryville, which was the No. 11 ranked team out of Tennessee in 2025, had a coach that had interacted with athletes, answering questions regarding the school in direct messages. If any of the players that had correspondence with the coach end up transferring to Maryville, they will be ineligible for up to one year.

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