Tennessee's image problem just isn't getting better.

Despite a raft of denials, a press conference featuring every coach they could muster up, and entreaties not to judge before all the facts are in, the University of Tennessee's ongoing sexual assault scandal just isn't improving.   An article today in the Tennessean newspaper quotes court filings which allege that Tennessee football coach Butch Jones referred to football player Drae Bowles as "a traitor" for assisting a female student who alleged that she had been raped by Tennessee football players A.J. Johnson and Michael Williams.

It's an incredibly troubling allegation. One that deserves a reaction from a program that's spending a lot of time reacting lately. Jones was among the University coaches who took to the stage just yesterday to argue that their school does not have a culture hostile to women.  One could argue that that public spectacle was not necessarily helpful to the school's cause. But this latest accusation, if true, would indicate that Jones was not nearly ignorant to the problems surrounding Volunteer athletics, but may have in fact abetted them. On the heels of the resurrected saga of Peyton Manning's testicles, this new information makes it appear more and more that yesterday's presser was a carefully choreographed publicity event.

The timing of this new testimony appears to have been calculated to kick Jones in the shins following yesterday's carefully choreographed event. But that doesn't mean that the testimony is untrue. It would take some real brass cajones to submit a false affidavit in a federal court. Because that kind of thing will land you in federal prison. If I were representing the University of Tennessee, I'd be a little worried about what comes out next. How many more victims come forward? How many UT employees (and former employees) come forward with damning details? It's a sad, infuriating mess. And at the end of the day, it's too easy to forget that stories like this go beyond sports rivalries. That there are to often real victims who are really, irreparably hurt.

And while Tennessee officials have a lot of work to do, they're not the only ones. Tennessee isn't the only university in America dealing with these issues. It's the university dealing with the allegations publicly. This isn't the time to gloat. Nor the time for schadenfreude. This is the time to hope that Tennessee officials do a thorough, honest investigation of their school's culpability. As Georgia fans who remember the Jan Kemp saga can attest, it's no fun shining a light on your own shortcomings. I don't know that anything like the alleged misdeeds in Knoxville have occurred in Athens. But the notion that they could have should be enough to keep officials vigilant.