Goose wrote:My understanding of the APR scores is that a 925 means that 50% of the current players from your team are "on target" to Graduate. My guess (and this is purely a guess) would be that the disparity you are seeing with the penalties between Mid-Major schools and BCS schools is the result of BCS schools having more resources.
I would imagine that most BCS schools have hired somebody (or at least trained the Academic Advisors for the Athletic Programs) to make sure that their teams meet the 925 minimum score. If they have a player who is close to being on target to graduate (according to some complicated NCAA formula) then they have the player take a few easy courses that count toward Graduation in the Summer to keep them on target, or have them switch to a major where the courses they have taken would put them on target, etc.. With the Mid-Major schools they don't have the resources to concentrate on this, so what you are seeing is likely a more accurate reflection of where the teams stand from an academic perspective.
If the NCAA truly cared about Graduation rates, then they would just take a team's composite Graduation rate over a four or six year period and use that to see if these teams are Graduating their players. Instead they create some ridiculous formula and schools with more resources can hire and train individuals to work through the loopholes to take advantage of it.
I did a quick google search and came up with some evidence supporting my theory. The following chart shows four year graduation rates of football program from '94 to '97:
Long Term Graduation Rates for Football Student-Athletes [I-A Public Institutions]
1. MAC: 83% [10 of 12];
2. Big Ten: 80% [8 of 10];
3. ACC: 63% [5 of 8];
4. C-USA: 50% [4 of 8];
Pacific Ten: 50% [4 of 8];
6. Big 12: 45% [5 of 11];
7. WAC: 44% [4 of 9];
8. Big East: 43% [3 of 7];
9. Mountain West: 33% [2 of 6];
10. SEC: 18% [3 of 11];
11. Sun Belt: 16% [1 of 6].
Based on this data, it doesn't seem like the MAC is the conference with the problem. It is also interesting to note that it doesn't look like the Big Ten has much of a problem either.
But this list we are talking about is about all sports at all schools...not jsut football...
some of these small schools lost schollies for maybe tennis, golf, soccer etc...some of the not so popular sports...seems like most schools did best in major sports with exception of a few (UT, Temple)
Schadenfreude wrote:A point made at one of the MAC boards is that lots of schools had the option of taking this "squad size exemption" -- whatever it is -- and risk facing strong penalities if they can't get their house in order the following year.
It could be that BCS schools, as a group, tended to take that exemption, and that MAC schools decided to suck it up and take their medicine.
I don't know for sure. I need to study how this APR stuff works.
Here's my post about it on another board. It sounds like some of the MAC schools might have been caught off guard on this issue.
UT is listed in the 2004 edition of The Unofficial, Unbiased Guide to the 328 Most Interesting Colleges by Trent Anderson and Seppy Basili as one of the U.S. schools with the “Most Beautiful Urban Campus.”
