It also drew comparisons to another recent trial. In that case, Brock Turner, a former swimmer at Stanford, was sentenced to six months in jail after being convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman in 2015. The punishment, which many critics denounced as lenient, set off protests that echoed across the country and, on Wednesday, in Congress, where members of the House took turns reading a letter written by the victim.

Mr. Vandenburg and Mr. Batey are both facing minimum sentences of 15 years. The law also provided a mandatory minimum in Mr. Turner’s case — two years — but the judge had discretion to deviate from it.

The victim in Nashville, at the time a 21-year-old neuroscience major, testified that she had been drinking with Mr. Vandenburg at a bar. The next thing she recalled, she said, was waking up alone in his bed, in pain.

Questioned by the police four days later, Mr. Vandenburg acknowledged that he had watched the attack. “She got sexually assaulted right in front of me. And I didn’t do anything,” he said during the interrogation, according to The Tennessean. “I should’ve called someone.”

Mr. Vandenburg’s defense argued that he was intoxicated and could not be held responsible for his teammates’ actions.

While the state did not accuse Mr. Vandenburg of touching the woman, it argued that he coaxed others to do so. In that regard, said Tom Thurman, the deputy district attorney general, the videos taken by Mr. Vandenburg, some of which were recovered by investigators and shown during the trial, established his culpability beyond any doubt.

Randall Reagan, a lawyer for Mr. Vandenburg, said he would appeal.