Ex-College Football Star: Gets Life In Prison ... For Multiple Rapes

A former college football star -- who later became a police officer -- has just been sentenced to 263 years behind bars for raping several black women while on patrol in Oklahoma City.

Daniel Holtzclaw was a pretty damn good linebacker at Eastern Michigan from 2005 to 2008 and later got a tryout with the Detroit Lions ... though he didn't make the squad.

But he turned out to be a very bad guy ... and Thursday, he was hit with a life sentence after he was found guilty on 18 counts of raping and sexually abusing at least 8 women while on patrol as a cop.

Prosecutors say Holtzclaw preyed on women in a low-income neighborhood in OKC -- would search them for illegal drugs -- and then rape them ... while threatening to arrest them if they said anything.

One of the victims was only 17.