re: What happened to USC?

I don't think they thought the NCAA took their violations seriously because the media never took it seriously.

Yahoo Sports exposed all the problems with Reggie Bush's recruitment, and then a book was written about it. ESPN willfully blatantly ignored all of it.

During his announcement press conference on ESPN, Joe McKnight made comments about his recruitment that showed that USC committed more violations. ESPN let it slide and most of the talking heads spun it as "he's just a kid and didn't know what he was saying."

And that brings up another part of it that may have affected it. Most of the major known violations weren't directly committed by the university or its employees. They were committed by wannabe agents and former players.