The N.C.A.A. punished the University of Tennessee football program for recruiting violations and direct cash payments to athletes, imposing an $8 million fine and taking away scholarships for what it described as a culture of brazenly skirting rules in hopes of chasing wins.

The N.C.A.A.’s report ran through numerous examples, including “at least 110 impermissible hotel nights” and “180 impermissible meals” and regular cash payments — $5,000 here, $6,000 there — given directly to parents of recruits by former Tennessee Coach Jeremy Pruitt and others in the program, who worked to camouflage the payments from the athletic department’s official books. The value of the forbidden benefits totaled about $60,000, the report said.

Tennessee only avoided the harshest possible penalty, a postseason ban, because of what the N.C.A.A. described as an “exemplary” response while cooperating with investigators.

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