When John Denver wrote the anthem for Colorado, "Rocky Mountain High,'' he must have had Betsy Hoffman in mind.

The University of Colorado president reinstated football coach Gary Barnett despite the nasty nature of the recruiting scandal that has rocked the university, which means she must be smoking something. If she isn't, Hoffman has to be out of her mind.

Would you send your teenage child to be coached and looked after by a man who was so out of touch with his team that he had no idea nine women claimed to be sexually assaulted by his players dating back to 1997? If he did know, which would be worse, why didn't it set off an that something had gone wrong? If he didn't, what was he doing on his free time?

Not working as a private investigator, that's for sure.

Would you send your son to live in an atmosphere where allegedly alcohol and at least the suggestion of sex in exchange for football success were used to impress recruits? Throw in trips to strip joints and visits from female escorts, and it's an exceedingly questionable environment.

No one has alleged Barnett was popping the kegs or driving his recruits to the club, but if he didn't know, is he qualified to run a college football program?

More to the point, is he qualified to have your son under his care?

And what kind of program is he running if his players feel they can do such things without apparent fear of consequence?

Barnett revealed much about his attitude toward such things with his response to a former female member of his team claiming she'd been sexually assaulted by a teammate. Barnett said she wasn't much of a kicker. But let's give him the benefit of the doubt on that. Let's say there's more to the relationship of all involved than we know, or maybe Barnett was caught off guard and didn't think before he spoke.

Fine. What about the rest of the mess?

According to Barnett, he didn't know a thing about what led to a 51-page report from a Board of Regents commission that looked into this sordid affair. They concluded administrators and coaches did not condone the alleged misconduct of players with alcohol, sex, strip joints and at least one charge of hiring employees from a local escort service to do considerably more for these recruits than drive a tour bus around town.

That's noble of them.

But if so, why would an ex-Colorado recruiting aide be accused of having hired women from a local escort service to go to a hotel frequented by football recruits? Why would the owner of the service say that and why would lawyers for three of the women confirm it?

And why would the same aide's telephone records reflect an oddly high number of calls to said service? Why would the aide think this was a safe way to recruit if he feared Barnett's wrath?

Why? Why? Why?

Clearly, as the report concluded, the Colorado football operation was run with little administrative oversight. Hanging over all of this like a long, dark shadow is a lawsuit filed by three women who claim they were sexually assaulted in 2001 by several Colorado football players, which Barnett says he knows nothing about.

It's unlikely Barnett condoned use of sex and alcohol for recruiting players. There hasn't been any proof otherwise and he surely didn't condone sexual assault.

But there is another question here and it's a simple one: Is he responsible for what goes on in his own program, for things that occur on and off the field?

Without a doubt.

The report did not lay blame directly on Barnett or athletic director Richard Tharp, but it did say Tharp created an atmosphere of "plausible deniability,'' while Barnett was resistant to calls for change. Why the need for plausible deniability if nothing was going on that they might need to deny knowledge of?

There was a damning e-mail from Barnett to Tharp as well, one in which the coach wrote about the charges of sexual assault filed by former kicker Katie Hnida that said, "How aggressive should I be re: katie...sexual conquests by her, etc.''

Excuse me? How about being a little more aggressive in knowing what the heck is going on when you turn young recruits over to your players?

Boulder County district attorney Mary Keenan put the university "on notice'' about recruit behavior as early as 1998 regarding sexual assault charges, a year before Barnett arrived in Boulder. Yet, wouldn't the coach be made aware of such problems with a program before and after he got the job?

Colorado has endured football scandals before, but the school looked the other way when the Buffs won.

Who's to say that might not happen again?