By Mike Lopresti

More rape allegations from Colorado. More possible dishonor. So much that the university president is now holding hasty press conferences at bedtime, announcing the football coach is being put on administrative leave, which is death row with pay.

Gary Barnett is probably finished at Colorado. Probably should be. He is the captain, and his ship's repute is turning into that of a love boat cesspool.

We now know there have been six women charging sexual misconduct by Colorado football players since 1997. Barnett supposedly responded to one by saying to the alleged victim he would back his player "100 percent" if she proceeded with legal action.

We know now that when Katie Hnida, the former place-kicker, came forward this week in Sports Illustrated to say she was raped by a teammate, Barnett used the occasion to assess her ability to make field goals.

"She was awful."

We now know a local prosecutor suggested the Buffaloes have used alcohol and sex to lure recruits. There are reports of hired strippers and paid escorts.

If true, Colorado football sounds like a Roman orgy.

And so crumbles the reputation of a man who once coached prim and proper and doormat-for-decades Northwestern to the Rose Bowl. Whose first recruiting class at Northwestern had a 100 percent, four-year graduation rate.

It is a shocking fall for Barnett, champion to pariah. If that's what the truth turns out to be.

This is also a scandal that spotlights the worst assumptions about big time college sports. Coddled athletes, deluded by fame and importance into believing they can act however they wish. A culture and coach too busy worrying about beating Nebraska and Oklahoma to be bothered with codes of conduct. A program that becomes a burden more than a blessing for a university, with every outrageous deed or foolish word.

Presumably, when the investigations are done, we will know what really happened. How smutty this truly is. But one thing can be said now.

The environment that leads to such grime is more complex than Gary Barnett. Or his football team.

You want sex over-running sport? Look at the Super Bowl. Lewd, bawdy, over the top.

Television reflects society. Is that who we are?

You want the problem of conduct on campus? Look at Colorado. But not just the football team.

There is something called the Princeton Review - no relation to Princeton University - which rates where the party animals go to college. Colorado is ranked the No. 1 party school in America. No. 3 in widespread marijuana use, No. 4 in use of hard liquor.

So maybe the Princeton Review judging method has more holes than a tennis net. But another study found 63 percent of the students at Colorado engage in binge drinking.

Colorado is a fine university. But it would seem to have some behavioral issues that go well beyond Gary Barnett's roster. Those problems just don't get televised press conferences.

Still, the current whiff of shame and disgrace leads directly to the football program. Its credibility at the moment would not fit on a deck of cards.

"Everybody's job is in jeopardy," president Betsy Hoffman repeated Wednesday night.

Fair enough. This is an ugly picture. But football is only part of the landscape. Sounds as if there are other concerns worth the Colorado administrators' attention, long after they drop the guillotine on Gary Barnett.