This is Iowa State University. Along with the universities of Indiana and Arkansas (and Notre Dame, Alabama and Florida State, for that matter), we’ve got dealing with athletic program crises down to a science.

Coach with a kiddie-porn habit? Can him and throw him in the clink. Coach with a Natty Light problem? Can him and ship him to Mississippi. It’s simple.

With that in mind, we feel we have some authority in giving advice to our Big 12 cohorts in Boulder, who are thoroughly tangled in a mess even more far-reaching than those of Larry Eustachy or Randy Brown.

The Buffaloes’ football program is taking flak on several fronts, with players accused of sexual assaults against nine women since 1997 and offering alcohol and marijuana to recruits, and coaches accused of operating secret slush funds to spend unsupervised on recruits, soliciting prostitutes and coercing women to perform sexual favors for players and recruits.

These allegations have come to light through two lawsuits against the program and university, a Colorado attorney general investigation and a grand jury investigation whose testimonies were leaked late last month.

So far, the lawsuits haven’t been decided, the attorney general — investigating the alleged sexual assaults — failed to indict anyone, and the grand jury, which finished its investigation last August, has offered up one indictment — against a recruiting aide for soliciting a prostitute and misusing a university cell phone.

The grand jury hasn’t addressed the slush fund or coaches’ roles in this laundry list of misdeeds, and the attorney general’s office has said the accusers are reluctant to move forward with the cases.

The university president, Elizabeth Hoffman, resigned Monday over the situation, illuminating at least the effect of the charges, if not their veracity.

Despite even this development, the university has heretofore stood by head coach Gary Barnett, denouncing the leak of secret grand jury testimony rather than addressing the testimony itself and issuing a no-brainer statement that it does not tolerate sexual harassment.

We don’t understand this dedication to Barnett.

A college coach’s duty is not only to win games, but to be a leader to young athletes and an ambassador for the university. The volume of accusations leveled at the football program has rendered Barnett a failure as a university ambassador, while the nature of the accusations have proven him a failure as a moral leader for his players. This is true no matter what Barnett’s involvement is in these actions. If he was unaware of happenings in his program, he is inept and unprepared for the duties of a Division I head football coach. If he did know what was going on, he’s an immoral, dishonest, chauvinistic lawbreaker.

Our advice for handling immoral or inept coaches who sully a university’s name?

Fire them.