Tennessee was protected by the SEC commissioner's office and apparently by someone in the NCAA. Even with obvious violations by UT, none were ever investigated seriously.
With the new SEC commissioner there seems to be somewhat of a cooling off with all of the backbiting.
My take is that every NCAA team violates the rules. Most rival coaches don't mind as long as it isn't too extreme. Fulmer, however, and to a lesser extent Spurrier take the rivalries extremely personally and inject a lot of hate into what were once intense but respectful rivalries.
Unfortunately, the NCAA is totally corrupt and inconsistent with their investigations and penalties.
It's damn near impossible to NOT violate the NCAA rules as they are written right now. That's how crazy the system is.
I mean look at the stupid situation with Dwayne Jarrett and USC. That shouldn't have been much of a problem at all, yet Jarrett was more or less fighting for his college career.
The NCAA is corrupt, for sure, but college football is such big business for these schools, they will do just about anything to get a good product on the field. Myles Brand is trying to single-handedly destroy the NCAA. For example, while the APR system looks like a pretty decent idea, there aren't any teeth in it. It's one of those ideas that need to be beefed up more to get taken seriously.
Personally, I think they should open it up a bit more. These schools make just oodles of $$$ off of the players, allow them to make money via advertising and all that stuff, kinda like a job. I don't think it would be appropriate for the schools to pay, but once a player has enrolled in a school, allow that player to make money on the advertising that uses that player.