This notion of "cheating" is difficult. It's vaguely defined, the NCAA actually has some ridiculous rules, and it seems that forms of rule-breaking are so rampant that we have to ask, "is it cheating, after all?".
As college sports fans, I think that so much of the recruitment-cheating we hear about is very petty on the crime scale... it's easily forgiven by fans and culture. It's not like mafia crime, in which people are getting murdered. Rich people are giving away money, or assets, etc.. to people they want to influence. So for the programs who cheat, and win... the NCAA can ultimately penalize them and "take away" their trophies, but the memories and the legacy largely remains intact.
Curious to see if people agree with this or not. But as an example, I think USC football was aggressively sanctioned for much of Pete Carroll's era. But even as their trophies are taken away... opinion hasn't changed on USC from that era. Back in the 2000s, we knew they were cheating, and they were the best program. Today, the NCAA has confirmed that they were indeed cheating, and we still look back and think that they were the best.