The three most feared words in college athletics -- Notice of Allegations -- have now arrived in Piscataway, and it is hard to decide what is most remarkable about what the NCAA's 18-month investigation uncovered.

Well, start here: Rutgers is facing seven violations stemming from a football season when it won four games. This is a team that couldn't win even when it was breaking the rules.

The football program under Kyle Flood -- and those last three words, while far less feared, are critically important here -- was an embarrassing mess where players routinely failed drug tests without penalty, where the women in the "ambassadors" program operated with no regard for the rules, and where the head coach failed to monitor any of it.

Flood wasn't just a lousy coach. He was a bad liar, too. I asked him in October 2015 if he was worried that his program, marred by seven player arrests, had a drug problem. His answer: "Our program enforces the university drug policy. That's not an issue."

Well, the NCAA found differently. From September 2011 until Flood was fired in late 2015, it states that "16 current and then football student-athletes who tested positive for banned substances were permitted to compete without being subjected to the corrective or disciplinary actions mandated by the institution's drug-testing policy."

Repeat: 16.

Flood will never coach for a major college football program again. He'll not only have to answer to the failure to monitor -- three more nasty words in college sports -- charge, but now can add ignoring the university drug policy to the academic improprieties that landed him a three-game suspension in 2015.

But Rutgers fans have long ago moved on from Flood, even if his successor Chris Ash is still cleaning up the mess he left behind. The question is this: Will the NCAA drop the hammer based on its findings? Or will it take into account the measures the university has taken in the past year to fix all this?

Rutgers, which insists it has cooperated with the investigation, is hoping for leniency.The charges are too serious for the NCAA not to take some action, with probation and scholarship reductions the most likely penalties. But this is not the same Rutgers athletic department or football program that it was in 2015.

Rutgers fired Flood and his incompetent boss, Julie Hermann. It is certainly fair to wonder how president Robert "Teflon Bob" Barchi left them both in their positions as long as he did -- suspending Flood first instead of firing him was incomprehensible then and looks even worse now -- but the correct course of action was taken eventually.

That isn't always the case in college sports. Look at Louisville, where basketball coach Rick Pitino and athletic director Tom Jurich are still gainfully employed despite a far worse scandal. Rutgers didn't challenge the NCAA the way North Carolina has during its academic scandal, but rather it cooperated fully. The drug policy was strengthened and the ambassador program dropped completely.

"I believe we are a stronger University because of our immediate and transparent response to them," Barchi wrote in a letter to the Rutgers community, "and you have my word that we will continue to strive for excellence with integrity."

That response should matter when a hearing takes place sometime in the spring. Then again, the Notice of Allegations is damaging enough. Rutgers should be enjoying its surprising 11-1 start to the basketball season and getting ready for a showdown with rival Seton Hall.

Instead? It'll be "same old Rutgers" for many people nationally who will only see the headline and not dive deeper into the changes. Ash isn't just battling Ohio State and Michigan. He is fighting a perception problem that has hovered over this athletics program. And it seems like every time the sun cracks through with some good news, the dark cloud returns.

Flood and Hermann are gone but the fiasco from their failed leadership remains. This was a football program that, while not always successful on the field, had built a fine reputation for academics and personal conduct under Greg Schiano. How quickly that was flushed under Flood-Hermann is remarkable, but here we are.

The only thing Ash and current athletic director Patrick Hobbs can do is keep trying to dig Rutgers out from under the rubble, and pray that the NCAA doesn't add to the pile with significant sanctions.

Steve Politi may be reached at spoliti@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevePoliti. Find NJ.com on Facebook.