The NCAA has finally served the Tennessee Vols football program with a notice of allegations.

According to Sports Illustrated, former Vols head coach Jeremy Pruitt, along with his wife, Casey, and several members of his staff, paid out around $60,000 in impermissible benefits to over 24 recruits during his three years in Knoxville.

You can check out the full report here (including details of the infractions).

There are two things that stand out beyond the violations.

For starters, it's somewhat shocking that Pruitt's wife was involved. She worked in compliance at Troy and Florida State (she was at FSU with Pruitt when he was an assistant under Jimbo Fisher). She should've known better than anyone that Tennessee was breaking rules and would most likely get caught.

According to the report, she directly paid recruits at least $2,000 in cash.

The other thing that stands out is that the program wasn't hit with a lack of institutional control penalty, which would've been devastating.

According to Sports Illustrated, that's "largely because of its transparency and integrity in promptly handling the wrongdoing".

From SI:

The institution showed strong cooperation with NCAA investigators, conducted its own thorough internal investigation and took immediate steps in dismissing the staff members and sanctioning itself. The university docked itself 12 football scholarships last season, as well as imposing several more recruiting penalties, sources tell SI.

There were a lot of arguments early during the investigation — arguments I agreed with at the time — that suggested Tennessee shouldn't cooperate with the NCAA.

It turns out that cooperating was the right move. The decision by Danny White, after he was hired in the wake of the scandal, to go out of his way to be transparent with the NCAA likely saved the program.

These violations were plentiful and extremely out in the open. It's actually surprising that Tennessee didn't get busted sooner. Pruitt was extremely sloppy with his methods. This stuff has gone on for decades at programs but rarely does a program get caught. That's because coaches and support staff usually know how to be smart about it. Pruitt, his wife, and his staff, however, had zero clue what they were doing. They were just recklessly throwing cash/benefits at recruits.

The Vols can finally put this all behind them. And really, it could be the best thing that ever happened to the program.

Because of this scandal, the Vols landed the best athletic director in the nation and it appears they found themselves an elite football coach.

Maybe the worst has finally passed for Tennessee football.

Featured image via Calvin Mattheis/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK