I think the transgressions of the Alabama players vs. those of tOSU are comparable. There may have been been a few more dollars involved in Columbus, but to debate whose players did worse is really splitting hairs.
The real issue for tOSU was, as is so often the case, not the act itself, but the reaction to getting busted. Kind of similar to Clinton's email problem: indignant, adamant denials, followed by new documented facts, followed by admissions in combination with denials of anything more, only to have yet more facts surface, and on and on until there was no credibility left.
And yeah, there are undeniable parallels to the way Stallings and Ingram handled Antonio Langham's cocktail napkin contract. What should have been a few games' suspension for one player tipped over the first domino in a string that played out for 10+ years.