for those who wonder why tOSU is tougher on academics, here is an article that may clear it up.
High academic standards shrink college football recruiting pool
By ED MILLER, The Virginian-Pilot
© February 1, 2006
Wake Forest football coach Jim Grobe was in a cheery mood as he drove from Statesville, N.C., back to Winston-Salem after a recruiting visit last Friday afternoon.
“We’re getting a lot of kids that everybody wants,” he said. “We very rarely take a kid anymore that’s not recruited by other ACC schools and other BCS schools.”
That might not sound like a big deal. After all, Wake Forest is in the ACC, too. But when it comes to recruiting, all conference schools do not fish from the same talent pool.
“Because of academics” at Wake, Grobe said, “it sometimes seems more like a puddle.”
When schools announce their recruiting classes today, national signing day, analysts will rank them on football talent alone. But what about academics? Which schools have the highest standards, and therefore the smallest pool of potential recruits?
David Glenn, editor of the weekly ACC Area Sports Journal, has covered football recruiting for 20 years. Each year, he attempts to collect academic data from every football signee. He generally gets data from about 80 percent of the players. Allowing for the imperfection of relying on the word of players, coaches and parents, Glenn has drawn some conclusions about which schools have the highest standards.
In the ACC, according to Glenn’s data, Duke tops the list. Boston College and Georgia Tech are tied for second, with Wake Forest fourth.
Virginia heads up the next group, at fifth, followed by Maryland and North Carolina, in no particular order, and Miami.
Bringing up the rear, in no particular order, are Clemson, Florida State, North Carolina State and Virginia Tech.
One way to track a school’s standards is by the number of players who sign in February and fail to qualify under NCAA freshman eligibility guidelines, and are therefore ineligible to receive a scholarship in August.
According to Glenn, over the last five recruiting classes (2001-2005), N.C. State led the way with 20 non-qualifiers. Clemson had 19, followed by Florida State and Miami with 18 each. Virginia Tech had 15, North Carolina 11, Virginia eight, Maryland six, Boston College two, Georgia Tech and Wake Forest one each and Duke none.
“Every year, the list of players who sign in February is significantly different than the list of kids who enroll in August,” Glenn said.
Prep schools like Hargrave Military Academy and Fork Union Military Academy have become popular destinations for recruits who don’t qualify after high school. Many, if not most, of the students who prep there lack a qualifying test score on either the SAT or ACT.
As many as 20 athletes who played at Hargrave this season will sign with ACC schools today. Many are signing for the second time. Hargrave had 28 alumni on ACC rosters in 2005, according to the school.
In 2005, Virginia had two Hargrave alumni — linebacker Ahmad Brooks and guard Brandon Albert — in the starting lineup. Linebacker Olu Hall also prepped at Hargrave, as did cornerback Phillip Brown, who was declared academically ineligible before the season. Quarterback Marques Hagans and nose tackle Keenan Carter attended Fork Union.
Glenn ranked Virginia a notch below Duke, Boston College, Georgia Tech and Wake Forest in part because of the number of prep school players it accepts.
“Virginia takes a lot of great students but also gets non-qualifiers,” he said.
The number varies from class to class. Virginia’s class of 2005 contained no players who failed to qualify under NCAA freshman eligibility rules, which are far less stringent than admissions standards for Virginia’s general student body. The NCAA uses a sliding scale to determine freshm an eligiblity. A player with a core GPA of 2.5, for example, would need an 820 SAT score to qualify. A player with a 2.8 would need a 700, and a player with a 2.2 would need a 940.
John A. Blackburn, Virginia’s dean of admission, said the school has no hard-and-fast rules when it comes to admitting players who needed a year of prep school to meet NCAA guidelines. He said the test is whether his department feels the student can succeed in the classroom.
“Of course, you and I know and the general public realizes that Division I-A football programs have some students on them who will have to struggle in order to be successful,” he said.
The goal at most schools is to minimize that number, particularly in light of a new NCAA measure known as the Academic Progress Rate. The APR carries penalties for schools that have too many players who leave school or do not graduate.
The APR could prompt teams to re-examine how many academic risks they are willing to take in the recruiting process. That could benefit schools like Wake Forest and harm those on the other end of the spectrum.
“Obviously you can’t go out there and sign 25 guys who are going to fall into that category,” Florida State recruiting coordinator John Lilly told the Orlando Sentinel. “You might sign five, a smaller number where you feel like a majority of those have a better-than-average chance to make it.”
Schools like Duke, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech and Boston College rarely sign any. Georgia Tech tightened standards under coach Chan Gailey after a spate of academic casualties among players recruited by former coach George O’Leary.
Grobe said enrolling players who are likely to struggle academically is like “herding cats” because of the extra care and attention needed to keep them eligible. For him, the recruiting trail rarely turns north toward Hargrave or Fork Union. Wake has enrolled just one prep school player since he took over in 2001.
“We got the green light on him ” with admissions, Grobe said. “But we can’t make a habit of it.”
The upside is that Wake generally has no post-signing-day surprises. The players who sign in February will enroll in August.
“That’s what you don’t see taken into account on signing day,” he said. “Will they still be around in five years?”
Or even, in some cases, in six months.
