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Auburn's Bruce Pearl: 'I ran a clean program' at Tennessee

John Reed / USA TODAY Sports

After a tumultuous run with Tennessee - including an NCAA investigation that caused his ouster - now-Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl opened up about his time at the Volunteers helm to Justin King of AL.com.

Pearl was investigated by the NCAA for potential violations and had sanctions levied against him and his staff after it was revealed he hosted high school junior Aaron Craft and his family at a cookout on an unofficial campus visit. He was subsequently fired in March 2011 after another NCAA investigation revealed additional violations were committed.

Pearl explained that his NCAA rules violation is not a reflection of how he ran his program.

"The decision that we made, I had about 100 people at my house on a Saturday after a Florida football game, and about 96 of them were allowed to be there," said Pearl. "We had three committed kids that really couldn't have been there, shouldn't have been there. I let them come and just said, 'Don’t say nothing to nobody about what a good cook I am.'

"The great devastation for me is when I lied. No matter whether I came back a week or two later and tried to tell the truth, didn't matter," continued Pearl. "I made that mistake. I had to own that. That's probably the biggest thing, I let so many people down. Its not so much what we did. I ran a clean program. We did a lot of things really, really right, but we made a mistake and paid a huge price."

The Tigers finished with a 15-20 record in his first season with the team.

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