Both programs have some warts, and no Gamecock who is old enough to have lived thru those times will deny it.
The improper benefits Clemson lavished on players was a scandal that was well documented in SI. It was created and orchestrated by the CU administration and CU Athletic Dept. In other words, it was premeditated, deliberate institutional cheating.
As for the steroid scandal, yes we did it. So did just about every other college sports program including Clemson who actually had a track athlete die in his dorm room bed from steroid use. One of the track coaches (Sam Colson) was made the sacrificial lamb, and was fired. Yes, Clemson had their own steroid scandal ... AFTER ... USC was made the scapegoat for what was going on at pretty much every other D1 school. It was wrong, but conceived by a few football coaches within the football program. There was no institutional involvement.
As for the Wingate Hotel issue where some football players were paying less to live there than other students, the NCAA cited USC for “Failure To Monitor”. They put themselves on voluntary probation, and imposed their own penalty. It was nothing more than a few players who negotiated a lower rate to live there than the hotel gave other students. Wow, some young kids got a lower rent than others. That went on everywhere students lived back in my days as a student. Some got lower rental rates than others ... athletes and non-athletes! Failure To Monitor was the only thing the NCAA could get USC for which basically means ... as a parent, your kids did something against the rules and you should always know everything your kids do.
Do not even begin to compare institutional cheating with a few rogue coaches and players who occasionally go off the reservation. The winning tradition CU boasts about was built on institutional cheating. I could write a thesis on all this but I’ll stop here.
