Plausible deniability is definitely an argumentative point.
That came up so much in the Paterno case and it seemed like the court system kind of let guys like McQuery off the hook even though he was telling the story that he couldn’t say plausible deniability (I don’t believe he claimed it either).
I think there is real deniability among some of the coaches, maybe not all.
I think some are probably guilty of encouraging in one form or another, maybe even present as it happened.
I think the issue is, as it was at pedo state, is that the coaches should've known.
Much of this happened in the locker room. They also kept lists of freshmen to be dry raped on the wall of the locker room. And it went on for many years. No one asked "why are these names here?"