I have no use for the NCAA. They are inconsistent, sometimes vindictive, and appear to be influenced by the school's reputation or the amount of money the school generates for them.
So, I will tell you two things I think: (1) If there was that much paying of players, by the head coach and the other coaches, Tennessee is going to be in a heap of trouble, as the NCAA will want to make an example of them. (2) BUT, do not ever think you can figure out what the NCAA is going to do based on either precedent or logic. What I said in (1) could be completely flipped around, just because you can never tell what they are going to do.
But if I were a betting person, and there actually are 51 violations, I would bet a good chunk of money on Tennessee getting hammered by the NCAA.
I agree with this 100%. If this was going on at Bama, LSU (which, it is, but they haven't been caught), or another favored school with the NCAA, self-imposed sanctions may work. I don't think they are going to let a school skate with direct payments from coaches to players. I lived through the Ole Miss investigation and the violations and "pay for play" was much more tame (loaner cars, letting a recruit use hunting land, letting a recruit sleep on a couch, etc.)--everyone was fired and OM received lack of institutional control, loss of scholarships and bowl bans. Even though the NCAA is inconsistent and arbitrary, those penalties are an almost absolute certainty for UT given what we know.
If the NCAA really wants to get you, they will get you, and I don't think UT helped themselves here. Ask Ole Miss how cooperation with the NCAA went. Hint: it did not mitigate the penalties at all. The one good thing is Pruitt has an incentive to not cooperate with the NCAA as he just wants to get paid from UT & wants to have the option to coach in the SEC again. He doesn't want to admit to all these violations when he is about to sue UT for his money claiming he had no idea this was going on, or openly admit to cheating to the NCAA where he will get a show cause and/or be blackballed.