41% of Bowl Teams Fail APR

[jimotis4heisman]

http://www.sportsline.com/collegefootball/story/9078876

ORLANDO, Fla. -- This year's bowl-bound college football teams are struggling to meet the NCAA's new academic standards, with 41 percent falling below minimum requirements and almost half lacking a 50 percent graduation rate, according to a survey released Monday.

The 56 Division 1-A football teams headed to bowl games have a lingering problem of too many student-athletes failing to complete their studies, said Richard Lapchick, the University of Central Florida professor who authored the annual report.
"The key is admitting students who are qualified to be in that school," said Lapchick, who heads the DeVos Sport Business Management Program at UCF.
This is the first year Lapchick has used the NCAA's Academic Progress Rate, known as APR, to measure the bowl-bound schools' academic progress. In past years, the study has relied solely on graduation rates.
Developed last year, the NCAA's new academic standard awards APR points based on how many scholarship student-athletes meet academic eligibility standards. A cutoff score of 925 means an estimated 50 percent of those student-athletes are on track graduate.
Starting this year, NCAA schools that regularly fall below the 925 score can lose scholarships, face recruiting restrictions and miss postseason play.
In a dry run of the system last year, more than 90 percent of Division I teams across all sports had passing scores. According to Lapchick's report, only 33 of the 56 bowl-bound teams -- 59 percent -- are above the 925 cutoff.
"Obviously we would like to see those statistics higher," said NCAA spokesman Bob Williams. "But this is a process that the NCAA member institutions are going through to change behavior and essentially ensure the student athletes, coaches and everyone involved in collegiate athletics understands that academic achievement and academic performance is just as important as athletic performance."
While the APR figures give schools an up-to-date assessment of how they're doing, the graduation rates are still useful in showing the disparity in the graduation rates between black and white student-athletes, Lapchick said.
Two-thirds of the bowl-bound schools graduated less than half of their African-American football student-athletes. By comparison, 49 percent of the bowl-bound schools failed to have a 50 percent graduation rate overall for those players, according to Lapchick's report.
Lapchick praised Northwestern University and Boston College for doing the best job of graduating football players. Both teams graduated at least 78 percent of all football student-athletes and at least 74 percent of African-American football student-athletes.
Two conferences, the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Big East Conference, had every one of their bowl-bound schools receive an APR score higher than 925, and all the teams in both conferences were in the top 25 of APR rankings for bowl-bound schools.
The Pacific 10's five schools chosen for bowl games scored less than 925.
The NCAA should be aiming to have two-thirds of the schools make the 925 cut when the next round of APR figures are released early next year, Lapchick said.
"I'm really hopeful that the next time the APR scores come out, it will show the expected improvement because of the sanctions that can be imposed on the schools," Lapchick said. "The APRs have gotten the schools' notice and attention."

[jwinslow]

ruh-roh, I thought the pac-10 academics were elite?

quite impressive stuff from the ACC & Big East schools...

[jimotis4heisman]

Originally Posted by jwinslow

ruh-roh, I thought the pac-10 academics were elite?

quite impressive stuff from the ACC & Big East schools...

or is it really? or is it just they are more efficient football factories?

[crazybuckfan40]

Originally Posted by jimotis4heisman

or is it really? or is it just they are more efficient football factories?

Great point. I think that is what we will start to see more of if, the APR gets put into full effect with taking away schlorships.

[jwinslow]

Originally Posted by jimotis4heisman

or is it really? or is it just they are more efficient football factories?

I don't know much about the big east, but the ACC is full of a lot of good academic schools. Heck, even cryami is a pretty good academic school when you don't count the football players. Some may be efficient, but when all of your bowl teams are in the top25, it's commendable.

OSU isn't the weakest by any means, but we have plenty of average students playing football. If Tressel managed to blow everyone away in the APR year after year, we would consider it commendable.

It's the staff's job to keep guys eligible. Make excuses if you must, but they are doing a great job keeping their guys eligible. Kind of hard to decipher from the internet whether or not they are all taking underwater basketweaving.

[crazybuckfan40]

Originally Posted by jwinslow

I don't know much about the big east, but the ACC is full of a lot of good academic schools. Heck, even cryami is a pretty good academic school when you don't count the football players. Some may be efficient, but when all of your bowl teams are in the top25, it's commendable.

OSU isn't the weakest by any means, but we have plenty of average students playing football. If Tressel managed to blow everyone away in the APR year after year, we would consider it commendable.

It's the staff's job to keep guys eligible. Make excuses if you must, but they are doing a great job keeping their guys eligible. Kind of hard to decipher from the internet whether or not they are all taking underwater basketweaving.

I agree with you here that some of those schools are good academics schools, but to me that means nothing when talking about athletes. I don't care if is Standford, but if the athletes arent making the grades that has nothing to do with how good a school it is.

I stick by my thought that if schlorships start to be revoked, we will see kids walking out of college not as smart as they couldve been b/c the coaches and people surrounding them were more worried about getting them through with pass grades than helping them out.

[jwinslow]

agreed, but there are very good academic schools in the ACC, such as BC.

the apr may indeed backfire as you are suggesting.

[tsteele316]

OSU isn't the weakest by any means, but we have plenty of average students playing football. If Tressel managed to blow everyone away in the APR year after year, we would consider it commendable.

It's the staff's job to keep guys eligible. Make excuses if you must, but they are doing a great job keeping their guys eligible. Kind of hard to decipher from the internet whether or not they are all taking underwater basketweaving.

its easy for schools like miami to keep guys eligible when your star player gets caught plagarizing twice in a 6 month span and his only punishment is to miss summer practices.

as for osu, i think their apr score was around 890 going into fall quarter. there have been no academic casualties yet, so the score should go up. i also think that 890 was based on the last few years, which may take into account the 14 draftees, and the rhodes scholar group of reggie smith, ira guilford, darius hiley, irizarry and underwood.<!-- / message --><!-- sig -->