Opinions differ, since we're not sure what the NCAA has actually found.
Things that may work in tOSU's favor:
1) If JT is the only person in tOSU's athletic/compliance departments that knew of the violations, he's already been penalized by having to resign.
2) TP appears to have been the biggest offender in terms of improper benefits. He's lost his senior season - when the NCAA ruled on Reggie Bush, he hadn't yet lost anything (the Heisman forfeiture came after the NCAA's initial ruling of penalties)
3) tOSU self-reported the JT transgressions after a staffer found the emails. They have apparently attempted to work with the NCAA in the process, as opposed to the defiant and stonewalling stance taken by Mike Garrett's staff at USC.
4) tOSU has had the reputation of having a model compliance department, with a full staff (6, with a pending request to increase that to 8 - something that should occur before the hearings in my opinion). USC had a small compliance staff.
5) tOSU's Letter of Allegations didn't include Lack of Institutional Control, or even the lesser 'Failure to Monitor' citation, a couple of months ago. That was based on the December admissions and JT's rules violations, but additional charges in the past few weeks caused the NCAA to conduct a further investigation. They can choose to add either charge if they found evidence that warrants it.
6) tOSU has people working on the case that are quite familiar with how the NCAA does things - but any school facing serious penalties does the same thing, so that's not something to count on.
Things that can work against tOSU:
1) The new sheriff in town, NCAA President Mark Emmert, has indicated that he wants to make those who violate the rules pay a serious penalty. His reputation is on the line in this very high profile case.
2) There will be a public outcry if the sanctions are less than those of USC, since the media feeding frenzy has given most of the nation the impression that things have been way out of control at tOSU for quite a while, and that tOSU deserves to get hit at least as hard as USC did.
3) If the NCAA uncovered hard evidence, such as checks deposited into TP's bank account by a guy that had been given tickets to games a couple of years ago, it places them on firm ground and would justify them taking a solid whack at tOSU. Right now, we don't really know if such evidence has been uncovered.
4) The press conferences tried to spin the violations as kids needing money to help their families, and JT trying to protect confidentiality. Those versions now ring very hollow, but it's hard to say how much worse that makes things in the eyes of the NCAA.
5) The allegations raised by the media in the last couple of months, (car deals, many more guys getting tattoos, TP signing things for money) make the quick investigation done by tOSU in December appear to be a gloss-over, rather than a thorough attempt to find any and all problems.
6) The NCAA has the ability to invoke the 'repeat offender' clause, which could make things much worse, since the violations were within the 5 year period following the ruling in the Jim O'Brien case. But they also had the ability to use that against USC, and didn't choose to use it.
Here's a debate that compares tOSU's situation to USC's:
CFN
