In fairness, we'll use the caveats early in this editorial, which is only partially about the arrests of former CU football players Bernard Jackson and Lionel Harris.

First, they're innocent until proven guilty. Second, they're no longer CU students, and they're no longer on the football team. They're both adults, and fully responsible for their actions.

But until this week, the vast majority of Coloradans knew almost nothing about them except that they played for the Buffs. Double-check if you wish, but it will be hard to find a media account that didn't basically lead with the phrase "former CU football players," and it will be just as tough to find an editor who would decide to do otherwise.

So, whether it's fair or not, the story has a nearly indelible link to CU and the football program in the eyes and ears of the public.

And the news was way too serious this time. Again, innocent until proven guilty, but Jackson and Harris were arrested in connection with a University Hill armed robbery, and they face charges on 15 counts, including aggravated robbery, first degree burglary, second degree burglary and menacing.

We're sure that virtually nobody thinks the football program is the top concern here, but it is a program that just doesn't need any more bad press for a long, long time.

Late last year, CU settled out of court with former student Lisa Simpson in the Title IX case for $2.5 million. The settlement might have ended a sore chapter in CU's history that began in 2001, but it also put key parts of the story -sex, booze, football recruiting practices, high-profile losses of jobs - back on the front page.

And in 2008, several current CU football players were also charged with crimes. In separate incidents, Riar Geer and Lynn Kotoa (assault), Jake Duren and Nate Vaiomounga (smashing windows) and Kai Maiava (underage consumption/possession of alcohol) put CU football news in the wrong section of the papers.

Now, we doubt anybody has stats on whether, say, many more CU liberal arts students were ticketed for alcohol this year than football players. Still, thousands of tickets get written in Boulder every year, and you'll never see a headline reading "Classics major caught quaffing."

And probably almost anybody who's attended a college with an athletic department has heard about a fight at a party involving an athlete, yet it isn't always the athlete who starts it.

But when it comes to bad press, the famous folks are going to be the ones who get it. And that's why we think it's time for some serious teamwork - in the football program, at CU and in Boulder - to help keep football news on the sports page, where it belongs.

We have no doubt that Athletic Director Mike Bohn and head football coach Dan Hawkins, along with their staffers, care deeply. We're sure that they've worked on ways to keep athletes out of trouble in the past, and that they'll redouble their efforts this year, and that they fully understand the 2007-08 "record" that we've touched on above.

But the guys at the top can only do so much, and we hope athletes will take a few points to heart.

First, of all the great athletes at CU in a given year, only a handful go pro, and only a select few wind up having long careers. In a violent sport like football, even a can't-miss NFL-caliber player might be one knee injury away from going "Heisman to has-been."

This means you've got to hit the textbooks, not just the playbook. College grads won't get the giant signing bonus that NFL first-rounders might get, but they earn, on average, about a million dollars more over the course of a working life than high school grads.

Second, this one's for both athletes and other young adults. Parties are for fun, not for violence and destruction.

Young adults - not only does picking a fight with a large athlete mess up the party, but you run the risk of serious physical injury. Athletes - yes, you're probably one of the toughest guys at the party, but the unwritten terms of your scholarship say you need to prove it on the field, not on the Hill.

Third, Division 1 athletes are in many ways basically public figures, and your success or trouble becomes our headline. And this is only a double-edged sword of success or scandal if you allow it to be.

In turn, CU is a state institution, and both the university and its athletic department need support from outside of Boulder. Filling Folsom Field on Saturdays alone doesn't cut it from a financial standpoint, and bad reputations don't thrill donors or backers.

Finally, even though athletes are trained to be tough, there's a point at which even the toughest need to seek help. For example, we've read that Jackson's young son has cancer, and whose heart doesn't bleed at that kind of news?

We don't know what kind of support network he had, or if he truly was at the end of some desperate rope. But wouldn't many counselors, employers, nonprofits or faith-based organizations think "Oh, THAT Bernard Jackson" and give him some semblance of the extra effort that he gave on the field?

Instead, it's possible that he chose a path that could put his name and future opportunities deep in the hole at a very young age. Forget the football program - this is the tragedy.